Is it the mood that I'm in or the way your cheek barely shifts when you smile
that takes me from having everything to having nothing?
You looked to the ground and rubbed the sides of your face
and I envisioned babies and held tighter to your hand.
My name written into the curves of your lips, calling me home,
and making me want to hide closer between your chest and arm in sleep.
I close my eyes and only pretend to sleep.
You watch over me, begin to laugh but stop at a smile.
I've never felt quite so at home
or comfortable in the notion of love. Nothing
between us but breath. I put my hand
to the side of your face.
The stubble on your cheek and your frayed, spiked hair force me to face,
the worry that when away, some girl is beside you asleep.
In morbid thoughts, you appease her appetite with your hands.
Maybe she hates every minute of it, but she smiles
anyway. You find her laugh transcends how you feel, but nothing
she does will make you stop to remember home.
No place in her back that you can pull her as close as with me. Home
is not found in her pretty made-up face,
but it's in your breath still haunting my neck. A way that nothing,
nobody, can adjust to how close I need to be in sleep.
Those nights away, your ocean smile
washes my dreams. It fills my mind and hands
me half faded remembrances. Your hands
and the warm shade of your eyes is my home.
A shelter from forced frogged smiles
and long letdown faces
that haunt me, and make me reach sleepy
eyed for your mouth. Nothing
But the reminder of how nothing
works better than a hand,
with fingers wrapped around my shoulder, or the taste of sleep
on your breath when your at home.
I have a part-time insecure face
eased only by the shaded softness of your smile.