Where the Wild Things Love (2)

Part 2 of 2 part poem

The world had been quiet for lifetimes.
Not the hush of peace, nor the lull of sleep,
but the silence of something missing,
of echoes in a hollowed chest,
of a soul unraveling, thread by thread,
with no hands left to weave it whole.

He had walked through crowded streets,
past blurred faces, through shifting years,
felt the weight of time press heavy in his ribs,
like hands that never held,
like arms that never stayed.
The winters passed, the summers waned,
but warmth
warmth never lingered.

And then

A heartbeat in the hush of dusk.
A breath stolen sharp,
a gaze that burned through the ages,
and there *there*
she stood.

Not as a fox in his ribs,
not as a ghost in the trees,
but as a girl wrapped in autumn’s dying light,
her eyes wide as if staring into a dream,
as if the very air between them had turned to glass
and she was afraid to shatter it.

She was so close.
So far.
A lifetime, an arm’s length
a single, aching step.

And then she was moving.
No hesitation, no caution,
just longing unfurling like wildfire,
just hands reaching, grasping, clutching,
as if she had spent a thousand lives searching
and had no strength left to let go.

Fingers in his hair,
arms tangled tight,
her face buried in his shoulder,
and he
he was trembling,
eyes burning,
breath ragged in the crook of her neck.

She smelled like rain on old earth,
like sun-drenched leaves and distant springs,
like something familiar, something his.
Not borrowed, not fleeting,
not just another dream.

His hands clutched at the fabric of her coat,
at the softness of her spine,
pulling, pressing, holding,
as if to anchor her soul into his own,
as if the gods themselves would have to pry her away.

And then

A sob.
Not quiet.
Not soft.
Not gentle.

A sound torn from the ribs, from the marrow,
from the depths of a love that had died
only to claw its way back to life.

Her shoulders shook.
His fingers dug deeper.
Tears spilled, hot and silent,
pressed into skin, into fabric,
until sorrow bled into joy,
until grief crumbled into warmth,
until they were no longer past and present,
loss and longing

Just hands, bodies, hearts,
entwined so tightly
that not even time
could take them apart.

And the world
for the first time in forever
was no longer quiet.