Desperation must’ve been written across my face when my heart stirred, whispering soft chants through its beats over the storm itself. As rain poured from heaven’s eyes, my tears entwining, I must’ve looked like a hapless portrait, dripping with sorrow. Hidden under the watery light of street lamps, you must’ve blinked thrice at the sight before you. Me before you. My clothes soaked and sagging against my body, their threads weighing heavy with wetness. Like a bird lost of its wings, my heart sank unstoppably at the fresh sight of you. And where the strands of my hair lay matted against my cheeks, I wished it would take hours of your hands through them, to detangle.
Neither bone or will could hold me anymore, and beneath the hands of the heavy, unrelenting rain, I plummeted to the pavement. Sparks of water flying before me. Knees hitting concrete where my palms bore the brunt of the collapse; all well-knowing it wasn’t the stress of rain. Only ample yards away, now bowing before you in a puddle of mud laced rain, my lips parted as if to say something. To bellow out to the gods– to you. Yet my shoulders curved under the pressure of my raging heart, the screams of it through my chest which was heaving up and down too rapidly. Wetness buried my tongue, cold and fierce raindrops of winter collided with my unspoken words. Words of wanting.
And with a hesitant gait, you crossed the cracks of the sidewalk. Making sure to strike each one with your footsteps, followed by those crackles of sparking water. I felt your soft stare atop the crown of my head, well-hidden worry. But your face remained placid and glazed with clear wetness, free of fallen empathetic tears. Your cool, unfazed voice rallied through the night air. Reaching my skin with a caress which only made my shoulders cave more, closer and closer to the ground as you made me weak.
I squinted against the wailing storm as it whipped me in the face. A stare from the plum-like stains under my eyes for sleep had become futile when I stirred without you to bring me from nightmares. I wondered if you could see the sliver of self-loathing seeping through my skin. Wondered if you could feel my reaching hope like a phantom touch across your chest. Like where my hand had laid before, I wondered if my touch still weighed heavy on you. However, no emotion passed through your stoic features, the sharp lines of your face, as my fingers brimming with numbness, met your outstretched grasp. Lifting me. Pulling me out once more.
Desperately, my mind spun threads which broke and cracked at the unpalatable state of myself before you. Silent. I had stayed silent as you walked me inside where the scent of fresh mint met my senses for another time. A godly like remembrance.
You toed off your boots deftly like you’d done this before. Your body landing where several blankets shuddered with the impact. And where I seated myself on the floor, careful not to wet your covers, I had too.
All unduly soon. Too soon before I could swipe the damp strands of hair stuck to my lips, my cheeks; you questioned. “Why?”
There was no reason for me to stand under the downpour of rain, to hope that I would wash away every touch you placed on my body. Every love scarring mark across my skin. There was so much lack of reason as to why I believed rain would wipe me clean of you. So I blankly stared into your gaze of inquiry, myself blinking thrice now, as I swam to an answer in the wetness of my own mind.
“Why bother?” You asked like you knew. Like the answer was written across my face.
To distract from lingering thoughts, my fingers slid across the lashing of hair against my cheeks and my lips parted once more. My words now unobstructed by water. “I am simply tired of talking to you.” Was I? Had I really been tired of talking to you? Or the tired grace you wore over my flesh? That was a lie.
You nodded, blinking once. “I’m tired of talking to you too,” and then for a heartbeat, your mouth had curved upwards. Only for a mere second before it had wiped clean as if that rain washed it down.
I began unlacing my boots, one after the other. Peeling their sodden leather from my skin. “Say that one more time,” I dragged on. And where a kernel of frustration bubbled up inside me, I discarded it. Hoping the storm would wash that away too. Free me of any care. “Say it once more,” I tempted, burying my fears.
It suddenly hadn’t bothered me that my clothes were still glued to my abdomen or that my hair was tangled like knotted seaweed. I hadn’t cared for the streaks of black marking my face like war paint. And as much as I had wished, prayed, that the rain would snuff out every ounce of lusting, blue burning fire…it still burned. I still burned for you.
Your mouth only tightened, thinly spreading across your face while your words rang flat. “I said, I am tired of talking to you too.” And then your jaw tightened, the muscles in your throat straining from the pressure of my darkened gaze.
That fire burned all helplessness to its core and once my boots had been stowed beside the couch, followed by my damp socks, I curled my tongue over the edges of my mouth. Wiping marred sorrow as my knees held against my chest. My forearms found rest against their knobs and my chin found rest against them, as I now stared through my lashes at your lips.
Silence pursed through the tight air between us. Purring through my ears beside the rapid beats of my heart which sounded fading reality. Delighted in it, fed from silence and tension, I wickedly smiled a wet grin. Peeling the last layers of dissipating sadness from my skin and burning it at such waking flame.
And so you then crouched down, meeting my body on the ground. Knees finding placement before my feet. Palms pressing into the carpeted floor to keep your face mere inches from mine. Your appearance written with that same lust for tension, etched along your features with rawness. Truth lit by common wildfire.
I felt heat over my thawing skin where your fingers brushed up against it, feeling inquisitively as if you hadn’t felt there before. Tracing the back of your burning thumb across my face as if you were a curious cat. And a wicked, sistering smile bloomed at your lips where they subsequently ebbed closer to mine. Then pulling back, strung along the strings of tension wrapped tightly between us. Soon reeling themselves back into the ashes of the past.
I breathed. A breath so heavy and so warm it had your skin combusting and then I dropped my wet lips to yours. Taking in the silence, tasting the tension with my teeth as they were then at your neck. Your breaths became fragmented in answer.
“So shut me up then.” My lips closed around yours once more.