I have learned you the way hands learn clay
first hesitant, then certain,
then unable to forget.
Your throat remembers the shape of my mouth.
Your wrists remember the weight of my grip.
Your hips remember a rhythm
that has no name in any language
except ours.
I have watched you sleep
and counted the ways you are beautiful:
the mole below your ribs
that tastes like salt and want,
the place behind your knee
where skin is softer than anything,
the sound you make at dawn
when you reach for me
before you're even awake.
You asked me once
what I want.
I want to be the last thing you think of
before sleep takes you.
I want to be the first thing you find
when you surface.
I want to map you with my mouth
until every inch of you
has been named
and claimed
and named again.
I want to be so deep inside you
that we forget
where one of us ends
and the other begins.
I want to be the reason
you believe in something after this.
Your body is a country
I will never finish exploring.
Every time I think I've memorised you,
you show me something new:
a shiver I haven't caused,
a sound I haven't earned,
a way of saying my name
that makes me want to start over
and learn you again
from the beginning.
And I will.
I will learn you again
every day
for the rest of my life.
Because you are not a destination.
You are not a place I arrive
and then stop moving.
You are the journey itself.
You are the road
and the walking
and the home at the end of it.
You are everything.
Come here.
Let me remind you
what your body knows.
Let me show you
what mine learned
while you were gone.
Let me be
the reason
you stay.
