Today

Here you are now, a sudden important fixture in my life. Wasn't it just yesterday when I had no clue about how the smile on your face began or where it ended? And tomorrow it wouldn't matter if the smile were no longer there. It wouldn't matter that you were no longer there.

But for now it's the surface of your eyes and the truth under your skin that I want to feel the most. It's the stain of your nails and the brightness of your teeth that I want to take home with me. It's the songs you paint and the dreams you write that I want to pack beneath my pillow. It's the 'me' you conjure up from the images of 'you' I've never seen that I want to breathe life into.

Yesterday life was complete and full without you. Even the beast couldn't get his foot inside the door if he tried. But today the light from your voice filters through all of the lifetimes I've lived.

Tomorrow you'll be gone taking with you everything I've imagined about you and me, including the sand between our toes as we chase tiny crabs along the shore. Tomorrow I'll put you away for someone else. And life will be complete and whole again.

But for now I feel you inside me, creating a void that's so beautiful and lonely that it makes me smile and cry all at once.