the dark

He places a finger on my lips, and I lean in - all smoky breath and lingering alcohol and clammy hands climbing up to smooth over collarbones and neck muscles - I try hiding beneath your coat from the cold and then I'm swallowed up by fraying cushions on our salvation army couch by the window, sunlight peering in through half-shut blinds and she's pouring earl grey tea into soup bowls and telling me about her day in drawn-out whispers, long legs tangled up with mine and I close my eyes and breathe in the smell of her shampoo until I blindly reach for your face, stubbornly unshaven and unsmiling, shoulders locked, and you're trying to tell me something important, I know it, but it's too scary so I build them, layer by layer, and then I can open my eyes in the dark again.