Astrud

maybe, when you leave, i will tell you that i love you. i will tell you that the feeling is unexpected, that it is still young, trembling, sheathed in a new awareness, like the gasp of a hardy rose when it first breaks through the sun-warmed earth. i will tell you that i am lost in it, that there are moments of drowning, and that there are times when i do not want to return to the surface. i will tell you that my breathing is only a deep momentum of life’s rhythm, the way africa is in a sonnet, the way that its country’s native drums resound through the night, with my heart following every beat.

maybe, when i tell you that i love you, you will listen. you will sit across me and look into my eyes, knowing that these are the only pools of darkness you would willingly lose yourself in. you will caress the energy of my hair, the curving lines of my neck, the soft slope of my shoulders without ever reaching out to me. you will then fold your hands in, as if in prayer, with your graceful head bowed down, your eyes studying the old lines on your fingers and the half-moons of your nails. you will listen like a child listens to his mother play the battered keys on the piano, and maybe, when you listen hard enough, you will hear the music of the drums.

maybe, when i have told you that i love you, my eyes will continue to speak. and they will say much, much more. with the eloquence of a gazelle, they will tell you the story of your face, of your hands, of your belly, of your feet. they will fashion words out of the air, snatch them like little fireflies, and they will tell you the secrets of lovers’ bodies and the way they seem to melt into each other without even touching. they will tell you that you are a continent, an unconquerable castle, a maharajah with his jewels sitting on the back of his trusty elephant, a fluid mountain, a sequoia, a soaring eagle who travels blue-gray skies, an ancient nautilus. when the lips are quiet, the eyes say much, much more.

maybe, when both my lips and eyes have fallen silent, you will misunderstand. you will pull away from me like the tide pulls away from the shore, and you will forget the elemental languages life has taught you. you will forget, as i will remember. i will remember that i cannot hold your hand until I hold your heart, that not touching you is also loving you, that loving you is bidding you farewell. i am that perennial novice. i will stumble when you stand. i will falter when you are coherent. and i will not touch you as you have not touched me.

maybe you forget that my heart is a living thing. you forget the way it laments rain, the way it lies wantonly on a bed of damp soil, the way it jumps with the children who have hoops in their ears, the way it is fragrant, the way it consumes your passion, the way it sings the music of the universe, the way it kicks off the bedcovers, the way it wears sparkling gold rings, the way it makes shadow animals on the walls, the way it rises in wet abandon to your calling, the way it dances, the way it wears my father’s favorite hat, the way it struts, the way it shivers at the touch of your skin. maybe you forget that my heart is only a living thing, the only living thing. maybe you forget.

maybe, when you are gone, when you stand up and your starched shirt rustles in protest, when your chair folds into itself with loneliness, when the sky utters its solemn oath, when the door closes after your light footsteps, my lips and my eyes will fall forever silent. they will be beautiful, endless, unyielding, unchanging. they will know no goodbyes, no love. they will unlearn your name and your voice and your sinuous lines and your knuckles and the freckles on your cheek. all that will remain will be those great native drums, beating with a fervor that my heart once followed.

maybe.

-- transcience