Don't move yet, I want to keep the precise moment 

I slip through the bedroom door and see the hallway's 

narrow slant of light cover your sleeping form, 

the glimpse of your bare leg outside the blanket, 

locks of hair that have fallen over half of your face.

But there's a danger that comes with being so drawn in by someone.

You recede when I get near enough to summon 

what love once shaped, 

I realize the outline of you that I reach for in the 

room we shared is just a brief flicker, 

the residue of an image burned on a film strip 

when a camera flashes to transfer the temporary 

onto something we can touch and see but never inhabit again.

I've spent all my time from there trying to find 

the voice that will finally reach in and through 

you the same way you reached me.

Don't move yet, I want to memorize the second your eyes 

flutter between whatever realm your dreams traveled to 

where my soft touch along your cheek brings you home, 

to where I once said that waking with you is the place I cherish most.

But it's dangerous to be so drawn to all of what makes someone.

You recede when I near your lips and I realize you're 

already far away like when our world cracked and 

drifted apart to become distant masses unable to fit together again, 

always remaining aware of the other's absence.

I know this from trying to connect it all again 

but can't reach you the way you consume me.

Don't move yet, let me have the second our hands meet, 

joined links of an endless chain, 

our backs cooling on the grass, 

realizing how much more there is to you, 

that we're more than flesh and bone the night 

you said you loved me and I didn't know what to say back.

Our gaze fixed on the coming dusk, 

the sky was infinite above us then, 

daylight's final traces splitting countless golden 

beams through the trees and falling leaves.

Our lives would become similar to theirs, 

twisting in winds, colliding with one another, 

nameless fragments of us breaking and swirling to the ground, 

but even without the shelter we found in one another, 

something remains.

There are glows and shadows of you inside and around me, 

entities still telegraphing memories as if nothing has changed, 

as if nothing has moved on.