Sun filigreed through high tree lines

Touching our chosen space with bright finger tips

We swing, irregular rhythm, sometimes your momentum, sometimes mine

I watch you point your toes and know

It is hard to remain calm, not to act upon

Desires bound by respect and difference

You are a forest nymph, a hummingbird

You are a nayad of the lake, your honey my want

I imagine holding your bottom lip lightly with my teeth

Graze your unapproachable grace with whispering touch

Green water is still and birds sound from high

I hear it all

And only the gentle deep of your voice

How you move your mouth

The tilt of your long elegant neck

Sunlight turning your skin into caramel

Picks out the rushing river of your eyes

Glances off the high wistfulness of your cheeks

Your thin tshirt a wrapper, I long to pull toward me

Your fingers, nimble, I would take in my own

In my mind, I preserve each motion

How you tilt your small chin

The sway of your bones moving beneath skin

If I could I would cup your little face in my hands

Tilt you toward sunlight until all we could feel

Was radiance

Reach for the taste of your tongue

Bury myself in your laundered smell

The brush of forest and leaves, wild and breathing

Stay in that singular and plural second

Retracing the shapes you make, rising and falling

I know there are things pulling us back into the world

I know we cannot stay in this dappled moment forever

That life goes on demanding our turn of attention

But I will keep coming back to your eyes

Capturing light, water, air, me

I think I see

I think I see

More within your secret self

Than our words have yet said

All I can do is hope, I’m not imagining

Or the burning in my chest does not long alone

It would be inexplicable to feel so much

Without return

But as I drive away

The sun dipping slow behind clouds

I have a confidence I’ve never possessed

Certain it is not just me, who speaks silently beneath surfaces

If you can hold on to the courage of now, how we are

To let yourself feel it too

It doesn’t matter how long it will flame

It matters that we do not give up before we create that light

Before the resolve of desire and emotion

Sets untouched and life grows dark again

I do not want to give up on hoping

You’ll look at the same sky

Share my wish

You have planted a longing in me I cannot ignore

Unspoken and afraid to be real

Until you say

From your beautiful mouth

With your lovely faraway voice

Yes I want

I want you too

17 Replies to “Radiance”

  1. *sighs*
    All of this:
    “I do not want to give up on hoping
    You’ll look at the same sky
    Share my wish
    You have planted a longing in me I cannot ignore
    Unspoken and afraid to be real
    Until you say
    From your beautiful mouth
    With your lovely faraway voice
    Yes I want
    I want you too”
    It’s everything. I can relate to this. Beautifully written.

  2. Everyone wants a love like this. Everyone. If they say they don’t, they’re lying. You know how to evoke that longing as if you were bequeathed the gift of feeling.

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