Electricity

She kisses his head gently.
My love.

He smells of shampoo and dust, and in the August sunset, his forehead shows beads of sweat. He's struggling with the weather, he tells her. She smiles and nodds understandingly.

She watches his face for signs of age, any indication that this figment of her many sleepless dreams has changed for the worse. She had hoped he would gain weight, lose his smile, and the tremendous traces he leaves on her skin (goosebumps).

Six months later, it's still the same (short breaths).
She makes him tea- two heaping spoons of sugar, no milk, in her favourite cup, sets it delicately down on the table, and watches his hands.

They fidget with his shirt, they wander along her arm, they lose themselves around the freckle on her cheek. He shouldn't touch her, she knows. After all, they've both moved on. And they're both happy.

My love.

He's losing his hair, black tufts thinning at the base of his skull. He laughs about his protuding belly, proof that his youth is slowly fading, and she sits on her hands to stop herself from reaching out.

What a silly man, what a stupid thing to waste this wonderful little life brewing between them, but she says nothing.

Instead, she curls up her toes, lies back in her seat and sips her coffee.

He asks her about her news. She is looking younger, sweeter, thinner without him, and he knows it.

He is greedy; he reaches out, pulls her out of her chair, and lets her collapse onto his lap, into his generous arms (home).

He holds her like a man returning from battle, tired, lonely and desperate for her arms. In all his nights of tireless work and foreign faces, she remains a constant (light) in his mind.

My love.

She rests her hand against his chest, on that hollow skin that she used to scratch gently as a silent invitation. She pushes with what little willpower is left against his chest, pulling their skins unwillingly apart. Now, a safe space rests between their breaths (electricity).

She struggles with the sudden distance, his arms refusing to let her go. She reminds herself that too many complications rest between this moment of fake friendship and returning to the memory of his hands wandering into her hair, pulling her neck back and kissing the skin just under her chin.

Too many hearts were broken in the process, namely hers.

My love.