We shared space. Knew each other. Not able to touch. Not, for the most part, even thinking about touching each other. Simply sharing our words, our philosophies, our worries.
But the first time we touched bodies, you came back the following morning (after spending the entire day with me) and said, “I just wanted to finish our first date.” And you stayed all morning. I floated for days after– and that was, after all, only three short months. What would I have felt after six months before the first kiss, or a year? I’ve never known patience like that, but perhaps you have?
The weight of the words,
“What do you want?” “Nobody ever asked me that.”
Thirty five fucking years, and nobody asked you what you wanted. The wait. Not even knowing you are holding your breath, until you let out a long sigh of relief.
The art of patience, waiting. I’ve spent my life preparing myself for the day when I cannot see you, though I did not know it. Learning how to be away. I am far from perfecting that skill, yet still I wonder what I might have to offer others.
No, I don’t want to wait to see you, touch you, breathe you. We cannot touch today, cannot see each other. And, yet, how much sweeter will be that moment, laced with the impatience of the separation.
Absence may not make the heart grow fonder, but damn if I don’t know the depth of feeling that floods the body when the distance is shortened to a hair’s breadth. I cannot begin to describe the emotion, I only know that I want you to feel it.