back through the old notebooks...

Unabridged

Once upon a time, I could spend hours in the company of your voice.
I'd come knocking on your door in the dark of night, hair wet, eyes wide
And you'd let me in to the light and warmth of your world
For however long it took me to dry and remember where I put my courage

You would read to me from the book of your experience,
The good, the bad, the unusual, the mundane,
The explicit, the subtle...
All of it, unabridged.

And when you asked, I gave you the same tour of my mental dwellings,
The same free run of my mnemonic library.
Sixty miles apart, we lived together in the most intimate spaces known:
The spaces between breath and thought.

I think it is that which I most miss.

Your scent catches me unawares sometimes,
Wafting up from my computer's fan or my sofa's upholstry,
But I can pass it by.

The taste of you blossoms in my mouth now and then,
And I stroke tongue to hard palatte to savor it,
But I can let it fade.

Even the vibration of your appreciative purrs against my back
Or the dry hiss of the soles of your feet on my calves,
I can commend to someone else's back, someone else's calves,
And wish her joy in them as I had joy in them.

But.
I think sometimes
I will spend the rest of my life
Searching
For the hairbrush and
Green knee-sock that
Were lost to me
When you began picking
Which
Words
You used
When we spoke.

09MAR05
21:22

(don't worry, guys; Poetry night won't be a regular thing. I just came across this one and felt like tossing it up.
~*l.)