pretty things & potty mouths

if i cup my ear and press the skin of my cheek

against the hollow and freckles and lines of your back,

and listen just hard enough, long enough, desperate enough,

i hear the current of your heart crash back into me.

feel the tide come in with every perfectly timed beat.

if i wrap my arms around you one hundred times and then one hundred times more

pull you closer into me with every sweet swell of your breath,

and hang on just hard enough, long enough, desperate enough,

i feel the waves of a life you've lived before there was me.

see a life on the horizon you'll live out in every part of us.

you can have the skin of my cheek,

the length of my arms wrapping you, my most beautiful gift.

i'll be there as you sleep, inched as close as the space between us will allow.

with every rise and fall, with every kiss of the shore.

just hard enough.

long enough.

desperate enough.