Page 126 of Fifty First Times (Sharing You 0.40)

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with my mother’s footsteps when she’s awake (she isn’t)

and I’m good at feeling Stephanie’s dark skin

and tiny hands and big curls

and I’m good at feeling warm and alive and

educated, lying on top of this girl

thinking my profound thoughts at

inopportune

times

she nips at my chin,

kisses me deeper.

Smelling her sweat

she is signing yes yes yes

a rocked hand, a

pounding

and it scares me all of a sudden

to be this close and to sense with all of my

everything this person I’m going to lose

this person who I wasn’t ever

supposed to have

going away to the only place I ever wanted to go

and I never knew why until she I found out she was going

this person

this person

this person

making an I love you with my left hand

and pushing it into her thigh until it will hurt her

like it hurts me

tonight

and then she opens her eyes

and I realize there’s enough light for me to see them

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