X Marks the Spot

So I take your head - your head, that mess of black snot wet sweat
hair and swollen purpled eyes and shaking - I take your head and I hold
it like it didn't belong to your body, like your head was just a thing
that was hurt and needed loving. I take your head and I say sssh and I
say it's okay and I say this will be alright.

You say nh and nh and no with your face hidden. You say nh and nh and
no.

I rest my hand palm flat on the back of your head, look up into the
mirror opposite and watch us. You're shaking still, coming to calm,
easing back like a lock drawn bolt into something more open. I can see
you again. It's like the light coming or a finger poking through
plaster from an adjoining room. You lift yourself and bring your hands
up. I can't see detail but a lifetime of being here informs you, I know
you - you push the wet hair from around your eyes, you sniff (drawing
centuries of mucas back into your throat), you say the word shit and
then you drop back down, your hands on my right leg, your head on your
hands.

So this is how we sit, you horizontal and me vertical, some X marking
some spot.

I stare down at the back of your neck, know the softness of your
hairline just by looking. This is what comes of knowing you. I don't
have to touch to know. I know. Just as you do. And sometimes
familiarity breeds contempt. And sometimes it doesn't.

Your hands squeeze gently as you rub your nose back and forth across
your knuckles. Outside, a car yaws by, faster than any car could
possibly travel. I look out into the dark of our street and then back
down at you, and I think about all of the words we said.

It occurs to me: I don't regret a single thing. So we're in this place.
So we're an X marking the spot. So right now I'm tired of this. One day
you'll be tired of this. And maybe it's a storm we'll ride and maybe
it's a wave that will crush us, but. You have to find these things out.
You can't take a treasure map and set out with spades into the night
and then just plain give up. You can't watch the night bleed free of
dark and just say ahw well, we had the map, we had the spades. It's
shit or get off the pot. It's dig or die.

So we sit, you horizontal and me vertical, listening to each other
breathe and it's fine, it's alright, really, it's okay. We're
breathing, and breathing is good. After everything else, breathing is
good. We're enjoying the notion of calm. This is some respite. We'll
need this, in the days ahead.

What with all the digging we've got planned.