Landing

I came to you many miles above the world,
caved into your touch, shuddering in the wonder
of merging with another, of the nuances of fate—
flying intertwined for a reason.

Miles above the world, your heart beat
as you watched me. I could feel it through
your chest, pressed against you in our seats
molding to your body more and more
with every sigh, wishing that we never had
our separate destinations.

We weren’t ready for the divergence. To pass
through the barrier between earth and sky,
to touch firm ground, marked dark with borders
and names, the ground where you were known
as one distinct life and I was known to be
distinctly, painfully another.

You’d later haunt me with your softness.
I remembered you while in the grip of another,
tossing my body exactly where he wanted it,
pushing and pulling for his selfish release.

I thought of you, of the way you loved how I blush,
of the way I eased into you and you eased
back into me, of the satisfaction it brought you
to gently bring me higher. In your lips,
I briefly tasted what’s as bitter as is sweet—
recognition beyond my bare body in a bed,
awareness of how little my silhouette really says.

I crave you, the way your eyes drank me in.
I crave the tinge of fear in your voice
that reminds me I am loveable, I crave your
endless questions that remind me
you can hurt. I know I could’ve touched you
with the same care you touched me, I know
how much I could’ve given you
in the fewest precious hours.

But you stopped the fight we once believed in
for us, for the coming together in whatever
way we could. I understand it, all your caution,
our one heartbreaking difference:

I wanted you, to escape my lonely for a while,
and you don’t want me so your lonely never comes.