I close my eyes
to try to make it as dark as I can
to shut out the light from the hall
from the street lamp
from my alarm.
To make it as dark as the sky
that we lay beneath.
I re-populate the darkness with the pinpricks we know so well.
Would you give me permission
to do more than imagine,
to accompany you out to the open dark
of the plains and the mountain tops,
if only to spend the hours it takes to get there,
voices alight,
learning your favorite things,
and then hours under the stars
in awestruck silence?
Excited breathing. Buzzing. Elation.
A late and innocent night
on the edge of dawn.
I open my eyes
To the headache of the hall light,
the street lamp,
my blinking alarm.