it takes one february morning when the sun forms you into stained-glass and shadows, between dream and wake, and my head on your strong chest becomes something impossible to believe in before breakfast - that I can still taste rain on you, an echo of my skin on yours. last night your body was ice that I held in my mouth for as long as I could, but under daylight now, no habit or memory could remake you to be as solid as you were. strange how you come to know someone after they've spent a night next to you, translucent, translated, succinct, and sweeter, the way an apple turns from green to red against one's lips. how you stood up and kissed my shoulder lightly, it reminded me of how a crowd of birds will take off, in murmurs of restlessness, to the north or wherever birds go. when you shake a kaleidoscope, it changes but stays beautiful, when you shook me last night, did I change? am I as beautiful now as when your knuckles came in contact with my skin, rough hands and ragged breathing? I could be the most exquisite thing, skin like porcelain, no scars that have scratched the surface but you still won't stay, that's the lovely thing about mornings under unfamiliar covers; there is no regulation. you don’t have to stay.