A History
As I watch a bead of sweat
Swim down the outline of your spine
I wonder of the stories it holds
And the history it knows and I never will,
Who else has made you sweat like this?
Who else have you laid beside you,
And over you, and locked in your arms?
How many have held you like this,
And how many more will come after?
How long will you hold my essence
In your lungs, and let my smell linger
In your pillowcase and bedsheets?
After these feelings come to pass
Like seasons do, swelling like tides
From this to that, will you think of me
As I do of you? Will I be more
Than just beads of sweat collecting
At the nape, treading down your back?
You see, your name leaves through my lips
Familiarly, like they were made to whisper it.
Maybe it's not insane to let emotions rest
On my tongue and leap off my lips
Like I have let them do in front of you.
Will I be more than an abandoned name,
Or is this all that this will amount to,
This final moment of desperation,
Of drops dancing down my shadow
Marked so finely against your back?
My fingers slowly blending them
Into your shoulder blades, drying up the past
And absorbing the possibility of this, of us,
Burying the future into your pores
With my eager, hasty fingertips.