Work Text:
Sometimes, when I wake up, you are there.
The awkward shape you make in a bed that isn't made for you. It's comfortable, you insist, and right away, I know you are lying. But you won't admit to it, and I let you believe that I believe you. A harmless conceit to keep you close.
You trace the contours of my cracked heel. It looks like an injury you say. I laugh a little and explain that it comes from running in heavy boots, the way they rub, their stiff soles, that human skin isn't nearly so robust as yours. Your skin, with its plates and scutes and scales and other hard sounding things. You tease me about my spongy bits. I remind you that we're the same inside: sacks of liquid, organs, meat, soft tissue encased in a rind that can be easily pierced or pared. And sometimes a shell, and another, and another—a set of defensive nesting dolls.
When we're in the field, I don't think about these things so much. You and I—distal ends of a single phrase. Far and near, narrow and broad, precise and explosive. Call and response. I don't worry about you there.
It's here, from the comfort of seclusion, that I feel my stomach swoop. How vulnerable you are to me, entrusting me with your sparing form and all its misleading sharps and angles. And yes, I let you find me too. Your tender and practiced touch on me, the highs and lows of me—on the insides of my thighs, on the rise of my cheek, the dip of my lower back.
Always turning, round and round, each side a thrill in turn. Turning round and round and over, we are turning.