I wish you could know how good holding you feels. In any darkness when I bury my face into your back I'm really rooting myself into your body so that you can never go away even if you tried. I'm planting an oak tree on your torso and building myself a nest in its branches so that I can organically live with you.

And I feel foolish writing about how much I love you. Sometimes I get so angry with you that I scream and push and in those moments your pain flows into my skin and inflames my mouth even more. You shouldn't let me hurt you. You should feel my love every millisecond that you breathe. Yet while I am writing you are laughing somewhere else with someone else and your thoughts are galaxies away from my figure, clinging to my blankets for any warmth, pretending you were here to fall asleep and wake up to. That is why I feel foolish.

It's still part of the little bundle of secrets that I store behind my eyes, so deep that I can't even see them. But they're there and they plunge out like waterfalls when I'm driving away from you. They spill out onto the roads and get trampled by passing deer. I see the deer, and I wonder how you'd react, your eyes wide, pointing. Shh, stop, you'd say. And we'd sit in the darkness inside our metal capsule, sipping our tea and thinking of the pillows that wait miles ahead. And when the deer are finished devouring I start my engine and you fall asleep next to me and I stop again and kiss you on the nose.