the process is gradual. (no last things)

he woke me up for breakfast with three men on saturday. we sat at a table, in pajamas and bathrobes, listening to classical music and discussing what makes a good stripper name. there was organic cherry preserves for our toast and breakfast ham on a plate. i sat at the head of the table in quiet observance. conversations swirled around me.

we left the breakfast things on the table and the dishes in the sink. someone else would take care of them. assumptions are a necessary part of risk-taking, a necessary part of love.

when the others left, the house suddenly stilled. we were the only two people in the world, and we had all the time in the world. we did not. we certainly did not. and i lay on a foreign bed and looked at his face and said nothing. we were listening to conor oberst on a record player. the record spun behind and above my head. someone else’s incense burned lazily on the mantel. we kept quiet. we were swimming in distilled sunlight.

what is there to say about simply looking at someone?
memorization, perhaps, but you don’t care about my polaroids or my darkroom.

after a while, the record exhausted itself. he gave me a pep talk. i stepped off the bed, and we took victory laps to our separate cars and our goodbye. we drove straight through lonely fields and isolated country roads. it was another first.