Both of us a shifting infinity
of confusion in constant collusion,
    fusing together
the precise moment
we're severed;

there's a small space between your face
& mine when we kiss…

& when we speak
invisible thoughts distort
& twist our words, so
that we'll never completely know
the other
                & love
will never help us escape
from the confines of our minds:

we will always be
ultimately
            
    alone.

But
despite it all,
        despite
the sleepless nights
born of petty fights &
the blood-shot eyes too tired
to cry any more;
regardless of every moment
we feel slipping away,
        hopelessly lost…

even though we know
it can be so fucking ugly sometimes,
nothing can change the fact
that there's such incredible purity
to the beauty
of this:

today I woke earlier than usual,
with nowhere to be &
nothing to do
but lay down next to you,
deep in animal heat,
listening
to the persistent rhythm
of our synchronised breathing…

Before the shimmer of colour dissolves into images
& the senses synchronise,
before objects gain permanence
& noise becomes language,
as instinct urges
the first scream of protest,
the craving begins:

to touch & to be touched.

A dream proceeds through the senses,
through sadness, through elation,
through bitter-sweet isolation,
& the aleatory revelation
when first we notice the symmetry
between our veins & those
of the leaves:

the dream
that we can reach out to touch
not just the surface but
the ineffable essence.

Melancholia is our mourning for,
& fucking our delirious affirmation of,
this dream;
speech
is our abstract acceptance
that the dream is impossible,
& your smile is the only reason
I sometimes still believe it isn’t,

because
there are more ways than one
to touch & to be touched…