The wind brushes her hair from her pale cheek
He glances her way.
It's cold out now but she brings her fingers to her wrists and
Slowly,
Carefully,
Pulls up her sleeves.

He turns away from her
And resumes his duties
Of making sure no
Emotions escape from his world.

She reveals all of the love and loss
On her arms
In the form of
Tattoos
And
Bruises
And
Scars.

Words he wrote.
Things he whispered in her ears late at night
When he thought she was sleeping.
She wasn't sleeping.
Not since that first
"I love you"
Left his lips.

It slipped past his chain link fences
And broke through his bolted doors
That he locked around
His heart
And
His hands.
"Don't let me touch her."
He tells himself
"Don't do it,
That'll be the end."

She glances at him now,
Eyes glassy,
Arms naked,
And makes her way over
To rest by his side.

He offers a polite smile
A visible form of
"Hello, goodbye."
She doesn't take it.
Not this time.

He pulls his cuffed hands closer to him
As she places her fingers
On his temples,
And now moves them downward
To his cheeks,
Now his jaw,
Now his mouth.

And as they lock eyes
Every other thing unlocks
And they fall to the ground
In a crash.

The sound of letting go
Wakes them up from their dream land
And they find themselves
Next to one another
Once again.

By the side of her coffin
As she's slowly lowered under
The ground where she stood
When the wind brushed her hair
From her pale
Dead
Cheek.