Night Poem

Within the fragile eggshell word lover
Rest the somehow sturdier words
Friend-Companion-Partner,
A linguistic chain creating connection, attraction.

His shoulder imprinting subtle lines into my cheek
And the warm-long cadence of his breathing
Causing me to rise and fall with the melodies of his chest

My nose turned to him, I try to breath in his skin cells,
Take his scent inside myself and
Keep him,
A floating, happy memory of air,
Of cologne and sleep intermingled.

I want to crawl inside of him,
press up fetus-like against against his internal organs.
Set up camp inside his body, beneath his flesh,
And wait for him there.

I have never been the type to love,
But even in his sleep he leads me to this unending conclusion,
His resting face an innocent jury condemning me
To years of love with him.

I cannot resist that face, that jury.
Nor do I protest my sentence.

[*Disclaimer: as a general rule (and probably wisely so) I avoid writing love poetry. **I just found the original to this poem, written about two years ago and inspired by my favorite short story ever, "A Long Walk to Forever". Pretty neat]