At Rest

There’s such perfection in his imperfection, the way he repeats himself when he’s really excited, but remembering every word he said and reciting it completely, not adding, not omitting, making it just as precise the second time around.

I love the way his mind won’t sit still; it’s the same as my wandering spirit, always fighting with every other part of us to work together, all the while wanting, needing, aching to move. Not because we aren’t happy where we are, we have different reasons for our need to move around, but the urge is still there, deep inside us, like electricity running through our every fiber.

There’s always a song in our hearts, never the same one as in the other’s but it’s music all the same. Sometimes he taps his finger or wiggles his foot in tune with a melody that only he can hear. My craving for music can only be soothed by putting on my headphones and letting the chords take me far away because in music I feel no pain, even when it reminds me of the past. It’s like watching a slide show, images that were and that will never be again. Images that cannot hurt me.

He always leaves his clothes exactly where he took them off, his boots are the same. I shove my dirty clothing into nooks and crannies because our laundry basket is full of my journals, all of them with a dozen or more pages torn out, words that could never quite express me perfectly. Sometimes I fold my tank tops up and put them back into my drawers, but I always smell them and decide they don’t smell clean, even if I’ve washed them six times since the last time I wore them. He throws his work shirts at the end of our bed at the end of a long day and by Saturday he is sniffing, the same as me.

Sometimes I get cravings for specific foods and nothing and everything else I eat is just as good, just as satisfying. My mind won’t let me forget these treats until I seem to be passing twelve gas stations on my way to everywhere and nowhere and I have to, HAVE TO, stop in and get whatever it is. He stashes his snacks on the floor next to his side of the bed, he’s very much more adventurous when it comes to food than I am and he comes home with the most exotic sounding foods, things I’ve never heard of. He doesn’t usually finish these snacks, sometimes he admits that they looked and sounded better than they actually tasted but he lived in the moment for that one moment while he was choosing it and while that may not seem monumental, truly it is.

Sometimes I think that I am unlovable because my mind it moves too quickly, it’s too negative, it’s been beaten and bent and broken and bruised, the same as my heart. He never gives up on trying to show me that not everyone is the same and that some hands are delicate with such fragile things, some touches are light and tender. And when my mind won’t stop moving, when his mind won’t stop moving and when his body yearns to move and my spirit wants to break free, in those moments when we are next to each other he reaches out and touches me and we are both still.