love story

She is in bed, laying on her back. Resting on the bottom end of a pillow, her head is tilted down to her chest. Her chin wrinkles into a couplet of little waves, rippling around her neck. Her eyes look down the barrel of her body and are locked onto the sight of her hands.

[the props of prose]

Next to her, he is laying on his side with his back resting against the wall. His head is held up by hand and elbow. His eyes watch quietly. He looks at her. She looks at her hands. They lay together in stillness and in silence, like lovers. Or letters of the alphabet.

[hold the story together]

Tucked into the corner of the room, the bed catches the remaining slivers of light. The white sheets make the bed and its two complements the only thing visible, as the three remaining corners of the room recede into black. The two lay in bed, adrift in a sea of starless night.

[hold the universe together]

He looks at her eyes. In them, he recognizes the focus of thought. His eyes follow down the imaginery line of sight, tiny red dots mapping out from her eyes. His visual path pauses over her mouth. There, he finds them twisted in the asymmetry of concentration. She is biting her lip.

[like cutouts of the moon]

She is biting her lip because she is trying to fix her hands. She is trying to fix the way the world is written. She is trying to fix the plot.

[finger on the mirror]

She is there, laying in bed, eyes lowered to her landscape, lips contorted in effort, attempting to stretch the wrinkles out from her hands. The universe is collapsing, so she is trying to pull herself apart.

[don't turn away]

He watches from a distance, keeping his back to the wall. But he wants to lean in. He wants to take a closer look. He wants to get caught in her line of sight, stuck in between her teeth, crumpled between her fingers.

[in mid-sentence]

But he knows his place. He recognizes the moment. And he wants it to last for as long as it can.

[there is something important here]

But he makes the mistake and speaks. "You're really pretty. Do you know that you're really pretty?" The words drop into her consciousness like a rock in a pond. Her motions slow to a stop, as the blood flushes into her cheeks. She blushes.

[a speedbump on the page]

She looks one degree towards him, then turns two degrees away. She puts her hands up to her mouth and tries to catch the vanity. "Thank you," is all she can say. "Thank you," is all she can repeat.

[and you lose your spot]

He has ruined it. He knows it. He knows the harder he holds onto it, the quicker it slips between his fingers. He knows better than to walk into the frame. "I'm sorry" he replies with regret.

[and progress in error]

Her eyes dart around the outline of her hands. She can see the air leave the room. She can feel the depressurization. But she doesn't know where it is coming from.

[there is something here]

A bubble of panic conceives in her chest, and the embryo pushes the words out into the atmosphere. "It's ok."

[it has to be here]

Her hands reappear into focus, one holding the other. She rotates each one slowly, like a jewel on a wrist. Like a star in the sky. She inspects them carefully, and to her disappointment, she finds that nothing has changed. They're still her hands.

[found and lost]

She's still falling apart. The universe is still collapsing, and it's taking her with it.

[compressed into a period]

He sees the dead in her eyes flare up again. She's searching in her story. And even though neither one of them is moving, he can tell she needs more room on the bed. He pushes away, not wanting to know perfection. He pushes away, but then realizes the wall behind him is still there, pushing him back.

[and the sentence finishes]

She can't pull herself apart. He can't push himself away.

[so, tell me something is here,
please]

They lay buried together, in the only lit corner of the room. They lay together, lost in the dark.

[tell me
the world dances
under the full moon]