The smell of your skin

(c) Bernhard Friedrich

The smell of your skin still lingers on me.
I’m wearing your touch like a coat.
I still feel your soft skin on my fingertips.
Your hands on me.
Your toes touching mine.
Four knees together.
And your hair is still tickling my nose.
Your neck on my arm.
Suppressing the blood flow.
It hurts.
I don’t care.
I won’t move.
You on my arm, this is how it is.
And how it stays.
Lying here and holding you.
In this magical moment.

It was as if, from outer space.
Like nothing I could have ever wished for.
Too real, too close, too true to perceive the whole depth of this moment.
Drunk from alcohol.
Drunk from touch.
Drunk from not knowing how it got this far.
How you landed in my arms.
How I landed in yours.
How we landed here.
We, here.
So close.

And with every breath I take,
With every single breath in,
I’m breathing you in,
I’m breathing you.

No matter how beautiful,
How deep,
How magical.
It feels timeless, but it is not.
I can’t hold my breath forever.
I can’t hold it forever.
I just can’t hold it.
I can’t hold you.
I can’t.

I have to breathe out.
I have to let you go.
And I let go.
I let you go.
Please don’t go.
But you go.

The closer it gets, the more it hurts.

But the smell of your skin still lingers on me.
I’m wearing your touch like a coat.