I want to be the last note lingering as the song fades out,
becoming a final chord to follow you into your dreams,
painting the walls your fingertips curiously trace
along before stepping out of the house.

You follow the cold night air,
the ghostly mist swirling around
when you exhale and dry leaves crunch
beneath your bare feet.

Following a path to the woods,
the familiar trees and faint sweet cinnamon scent
of the same forest where we kissed.

When I chased the music of your laughter,
as the only beacon guiding my legs along
cool soil and pale moonlight streaming,
until we embraced and I only knew the feel of you

Leaning me against a tree,
your lips claiming me as yours
and yours alone.

And even though you move through here alone,
you know a presence lingers here,
that memory contains it's own unique energy,
following our every step and carving
it's signature into our sleep.

Eyes entranced by a rainbow of lights pulsating,
flickering the closer you get to where we met,
the first place we truly began to know
what's within one another.

But,like all mysteries, the conclusion comes
long before the mystery is solved when you awaken,
unaware that I also dream while sleeping
close to your warm frame.

Where you make all that cradles me,
when you once confided in me that
you wanted to fill my heart
with volumes books cannot contain.

Fill me with cadences no creature could ever mimic,
how you wanted to stare into me and make illuminations
beyond any known spectrum of light,
the final glow when I slip into sleep.

Let memory after memory stitch together,
and make a tapestry of you I've devoted
every night to remembering.

But, like explorers who could once only travel
by the placement of stars and hand-drawn maps,
I can only go so far each time and the needle
within the compass I hold endlessly spins.

Telling me each direction and destination you've set
is just as important as the last.

I follow every new dark ocean,
knowing your presence is in each coast I drift to,
that you're every ripple in the water beneath
and even if I crash, you will be
the ocean wrapped around me.

As absolute and natural as the way
your arms slip around me now,
and you are each night the darkened sky
is edged with dawn's first light

Before I awaken to your face near mine,
the same love that claims me
as yours and yours alone.