edge of desire

In the thick of faith, I stuck my head out for a breather and there you were. Your eyes were like the sun.

All the while I kept you in my periphery, as you lay there in your symmetry. Somehow I could not dare look you in the eyes and commit you to memory. You would be another face, another case in which I try to squeeze out at least an ounce of guilt to pound myself with, to no avail.

I could only see in fleeting seconds the way the corners of your lips felted slightly into a coy smile, an inquiring silence hidden behind your passive posture. The way you swept the tattered edges of your physique behind you as if you could get away with it somehow sings to me, and I am smitten.

The feeling comes slowly now in waves, gentle and interminable. What a beautifully torn, frayed, imperfect edge. As I sit right across you and out of the way of your gaze, I could only imagine myself uttering the preceding words for you to hear and maybe take heart from.

In a way, this situation is killing me in that rugged, familiar style. I know perfectly well that this is as far as I should get. Like many others, you will come to pass, and so will this longing, perhaps. I wouldn’t even have a name to remember you by. Just the foggy outline of your stare dancing in my periphery, and the certainty of your hair falling over itself.