I hold the weight of your day in my hands as we drive in circles around our college campus. You need me, you say. You need me to kiss your bruises and tie your bandages. It is late at night and the New Hampshire snow is falling and I am falling and you are not. You speak of the future – your words building the faulty foundation for your tomorrow. We turn left and your eyes pierce into mine and undress my soul. You see my creaks and crevices and multitudes and bring me back to earth. You know me better than I know myself. We turn right and I am malleable and you are my sculptor. This Ford we are sitting in is the eye of our hurricane. Our elbows gently graze against each other and I wish so desperately that they were our lips. That the layers between us could dissolve. That my words and eyes and hands could undress your soul the way that you do to mine.
I slip into my fantasy again; the one where you are mine and we are fifty and watching our three kids chase the dog in the backyard. Our family is a tangled mess of crisscrossed shoelaces and walks to school and home. The New England fall nips at our skin. The chickens laid eggs this morning, and the paper is waiting for us in the kitchen. It is a simple life; we never were the type for excess. Our house is nestled between two pine trees, equidistant from the ocean and the mountains, the best of both our worlds. We are not perfect. We are overworked and underpaid and only want the best. My head is on your shoulder, your arm around my waist. Last night we noticed gray hairs on each other's heads and interlaced wrinkled fingers and laughed. Our souls weave our story; we are older together. I am yours and you are mine and we are out of the hurricane.