Ordinary Hours

I am kept away within myself
Retreating into scars
You see me in the weight of my tells
And want every single detail
You come to me in the shroud of my insecure indulgence
And hold my head from the flames

I want to speak of you in the way thunder speaks of light
I pull the sound from my throat
And hold it between the rain
Hoping you'll steal the words from my tongue
And make them yours
Give them home in the beautiful violence
Of how your power touches down
Along the earth of my soul

We hold every sacred collapse at the edge of our lips
To dissolve in the furnace of our hearts
The lingering pain of former lives
Is nothing more than the echo of ghosts that can no longer kill us
The world is quiet even when it's not
Because your existence keeps me in the comfort of what we've stitched together
From the tattered fabrics of being alive

I lie awake and watch the shadows climb down the walls and find you
Tucked away from it all
In a place where home is the gentle rise and fall of your chest
Our skin as quiet as the night outside my door
We are touching and not touching
Bound and free
Pure balance in these aging bodies
Our breath wanders in the darkness
Like dancing winds
In the farthest corners of the universe
Souls' whispers free from the limits of flesh and bone
They warm the room
And carry me off to where dreams swim
Between what is and isn't
You are there, too
Your laughter rippling the air like a skipped rock
And I think to myself
If this is heaven
I am finally a believer
If this is karma, I guess I was good in another life
And when I die in this one,
Bury me inside the soft hum of corners
Grown from the ordinary hours
Of our love