to my favorite lie

you asked:

what do i look like in your eyes?

and so i answer:

you look like a fever dream caught at the edge of sleep on a summer night. when the air hums thick and sweet, and even the stars seem too weary to burn, your arms gather around me like something ancient - not heat, not cold, but that sacred in-between; like coffee left just long enough to remember its warmth but forget how it scalds.

you resemble the word together, spoken like a prayer by someone who's only ever known solitude. you make the impossible sound tender. the idea of side-by-side living - of soft forks shared over morning eggs; of silence that doesn't demand to be filled - becomes believable because you breathe. 

you are the personification of every quiet, ruined desire. the ghost of hands i've never held but ache for anyway. you burn in my sleep - a flame i'd walk into, barefoot and blind.

you fall like April rains on the asphalt road - quiet, consistent, holy - and still i drink you in like a fool unaware of drought.

you look like the dust i've been warned not to breathe - but i'd inhale you anyway with open lungs and closed eyes.

you are the reason the sun and moon never touch. you are the thing the stars turn their backs to - too jealous to witness something that shines so honestly in all this godless dark.

you resemble so many final things - the kiss pressed to the lips of a dying child; a hand reaching for one more second of breath ; a mercy shown to someone underserving. you are every wish whispered into wells that no longer grant.

but hear me clearly - you are not perfect. not pretty, not neat, not saved. no god carves a thing as soft as you and leaves out the ruin. i've traced your bones too closely to believe in neatness. i know what brutality you carry like a hidden dagger, and still - still i want you. still i kneel.

you are not my past. you are not a memory. you are the future i pretend i don't believe in. you are my hours and seconds, you are the ticking clock beneath my ribs.

and even if you are a lie, some beautiful blasphemy i whisper to myself at night - you are the only lie that never hurts.