Inhale the silence

We wait together, I softly unfold your fingertips.
You are gripping my hand hard, turning over
the white edges of my palm into pages of speech,
but I am secretly cherishing our silence.
The molecules in the air melting against my body,
balancing my hope and your reality, pausing for breath.
And the clock is a thud inside my head,
I fixate my eyes on a passing man who looks lost.
Ask him if he needs directions, if he’s OK,
attempt to momentarily mute the sound around us.

Everything has become too real, unsettling so.
And I am sitting here trying not to listen
to your heartbeat, but it has grown so loud.
I sweep back to the other side of the room,
to my sister’s glowing cheeks, my grandparents pride.
But your shadow follows me at a pace, faster and faster.
Through the crowds of people, ordinary people
with families which aren’t governed with secrecy.
I escape for air, exhale patches of condensation,
arch my body against the door like a smoker.

I tell myself that it’s my asthma playing up.
But I am acting, I was born to act and I swallow back tears,
whilst people push past me, all smiles and admiration.
And I almost forget the reason I am about to cry,
but I look down at my legs and I am shaking.
My entire body erupting into fault-lines
and then I remember that I am your daughter.
You would rather we could both dissolve and reappear,
like a muscle contracting, your tissue, support for when you fall.