We see and are seen, do and are done to...

Corrine tired of his pain. She watched him, bent over the fire pit, his tongue between teeth. Grunts of effort absently escaped his lips as he tended the flame. It hurt to watch. She couldn't stop herself.
"One day, you're going to have to explain how you made this look so easy." Her eyes bulged, hand reaching for her chest. If she still had a pulse, she suspect it would be hammering. After some seconds of silence, the hope that he had somehow been aware of her presence died. _Wasn't death supposed to be paradise?_ not for the first time, she reached for him - only just holding her anger back as her hand passes through his form, wisps that reshaped on exit. A slight pause and shiver were her reward. It was going to be a _long_ afterlife.

Our memories are so long for the injustices we did not commit; our eyes sharp for the errors we did not make

John sat at on his west facing verandah, gazing out at the mottled reds and blues of a dying sun. bathed in the trills and buzzes of the evening, he contemplated his 'solitude.' a low rumble of laughter escaped him. 

"I go catch myself talking to the trees and waitin' for answer one o dese fine days." another chuckle. rising from the well worn, sturdy wooden chair, he ambled into the house, favouring his left side. In the familiarity of his bare four walled, one room hut, he went to the far left corner. Gingerly kneeling, he re-kindled his firepit. Flame stoked, he placed the kettle on for his evening tea. reaching under a floorboard for his hidden sweet breads and tea bags, his eyes catch a flash of light. Turning to the source, he sees the pendant, suspended over his sleeping mat. He had not thought of Melissa for a long time. He looks up sharply, eyes darting to the doorway- it is, of course, empty. He silently chided himself. She would never be back here; indeed, she could never return anywhere. 

"It wasn' mi fault, but a coulda never your own." the kettle, a once shiny copper thing, starts to shuffle on it's fire perch. soot blackened, with a plastic nub for a handle it whistles lamely. John reached for his mug,  wrapping his right hand with a corner of his shirt to grip the kettle, he pours his cuppa. a teabag flows up as the water level in the mug rises. the water very slowly becomes coloured by the leaves - or by the dregs of previous cuppas - He has ceased to care. This was the last one she gave him, and though now more of a suggestion of, than the once strong peppermint, he sips with a sort of lazy reverence. He hated tea. She had always been the tea drinker. 

Will There really be a morning (From A Dream)

Thierry lay on his stomach, eyes firmly shut as he willed himself anywhere but here. or perhaps any "when" but now. he slowly rose on his elbows, keeping them closed against the drone of the too loud aluminum fan, accented by the staccato expulsions of air coming from his left. he turned his head sharply to the right, as if the act alone could banish him to physical isolation. As  if to underline this, a chuckle sounded just behind his upturned ear. he repressed a shudder and hoped the unavoidable shake would be attributed to surprise. His limit had been reached.
"whoa man, I keep forgetting you have real skills there." an affected gruffness and slight smack to his mid thigh were the last he could stand of it.
"Leave." He neither looked back nor made any move to suggest he had even been speaking to anyone but himself. he felt the deflation of his bed mate. Regretting the hurt, he nevertheless needed the distance that the word would create. there would be time enough for apologies and self - castigation later. he rose from the bed and retreated to the kitchen, putting the electric kettle to boil as he foraged for his customary morning croissant and butter, gracelessly throwing it into the toaster oven. he turned to the glass double doors that led to his backyard, glorying in the feel of the suns rays. A lazy stretch uncoiling from his core and making his limbs undulate in salutation of the morning, he mewled, now on tiptoes turning his back to the warmth. chuckling at the act of 'baking his buns'. his smile faltered and disappeared as he heard shuffling and then the spray of shower jets. The 'beep' of the toaster oven and bubbling of the kettle jolted him back into movement. as he slowly sang to himself.
"I cheated myself, like I knew I would.
I told you, I was trouble,
You know that I'm no good." a drop fell onto the warm flaky pastry on its porcelain plate. he hastily swiped at his eyes and resumed preparing breakfast for one.

Short Story - Song For A Sacrifice (An Inner City Narrative)

Darren hustled quickly, his long strides echoing in the pre-dawn stillness.  It had been a gratifying night out with his friends, and though high on the release at attending the very rare indulgence of a party, he was acutely aware of what it would mean to be discovered out of bed come sunrise. 
He gingerly entered the old colonial era boarding house, a single storey clapboard structure with just enough concrete to make it habitable, crowned with a rusty prism of corrugated sheet zinc. Praying that the old wooden floor did not betray his return, he took tiptoeing skips down the corridor to the rooms he and Mama shared. He pressed first ear, then eyes to the keyhole before opening the door, ever so slowly lifting as he pushed to lessen the creak and twang of the old hinges. A particularly loud squeak just as the space was large enough to slide in made turned his blood to ice. For several heartbeats he held his position, not daring to look around. With a dull rushing exhale, convinced that he was undiscovered, he entered and swung the door to within an inch of closing, at last moment stilling the momentum as he carefully joined the jamb and door into their fitted seam and engaged the lock. 
"Darren, why you won't leave them loose gal and stop the bad living?  You don't think I getting tired of worrying ‘bout you?" the lamp by the couch, his bed of sorts, flicked on to reveal the comfortably appointed living room; casting shadows on the walls where his books, stacked on the dining table. The slight movement of recoil from the light brought his gaze to his mother, nightgown clad with a forbidding scowl. Crap.
"Mama, me’s a man now enuh, and is not like me a shame you, me don't disrespect you, go a church wit' you, all dem tings, and still you act like man cyaa go enjoy dem self?”
He hoped futilely that she would be derailed. Behind her large round bifocals, he saw her eyes and nose flare, then impossibly narrow. Why did he respond? He kicked himself mentally: he knew better than this. Stifling the sigh that was almost reflexive, he looked just left of her face, seeming to meet her gaze while really focused on a point just beyond her right shoulder. After a lengthy standoff, Darren’s defensive stance relaxed as she shrugged and lifted herself out of her perch. With a sigh and slow stretch she moved through the open door to his left that entered her bedroom. 
Having shucked off his shoes, Darren threw himself into the couch. Burying his head into the overstuffed armrest that was his pillow, he closed eyes dry and scratchy from exhaustion.
~*~*~*
“Oye fish, beg you move from mi gate deh!” 
A greeting and admonition shouted at some distance away, from within the sweaty ranks of the men ambling down the street. A facial tic was all that indicated that he heard the jibe, and Pancho continued his conversation with Marie, not missing a beat. Her demeanour however had changed, muscles in her neck and shoulders coiling. 
The group stopped several paces from the duo, and the speaker emerged, closing the distance with a self-confident bandy legged swagger. He planted a kiss on Marie’s neck before playfully rubbing a sweat soaked arm down the front of her blouse. She shrugged him off with an exaggerated grunt of disgust, to the catcalls of his mates who had resumed their progress. Laughing it off, he turned to Pancho and good-naturedly, if not too warmly, inclined his head in greeting.
“Evening Omar,” Pancho responded with an answering nod. “Marie, me going to go find my yard, tek care and layta.” With a wave of his long elegant fingers, he was off in a hip swinging strut up the street. 
Omar curled his arm around Marie’s ample waist, and led her back into their tenement from behind, he inhaling the scent of her shampooed auburn hair; she glorying in his musk.
~*~*~*
“Darren! Di rug dem want to wash, and you said you doing dem today. Come while the sun can dry dem!” There was a good deal of pleasure elicited by his pained groan of a response. She had only allowed him three hours of rest. He shed his shirt and jeans, and went to the clothes barrel behind her door to retrieve and shrug into oversized basketball shorts and a slim vest. 
Barefooted, Darren walked into their dustbowl of a yard, rolled area rug hoisted on his shoulder. As he walked along the front fence, he heard the musical jangle of bracelets, and turned in time to see Pancho round the corner in full ‘gumption gait’ as Darren called it. A soft chuckle escaped at the thought, derailing the progress of the passing musing’s subject. Turning to the fence, Pancho’s plastered smile became a sneer. 
“Morning Darren. What you find so funny in dis sun hot?” Darren looked up and then immediately away.
“Morning. I was just remembering something. Sorry.” He hung his head, wanting to retreat to the house, the backyard, to anywhere. He remained rooted to the spot, and berated himself for uttering the apology, to him an admission of guilt. 
Pancho peered down at the embarrassed youth from his considerable height. He was not a hard sight to get lost in: short and stocky, his muscular arms roped with pulsing veins, and a wide torso that tapered to a narrow waist; all supported by legs and calves of defined, almost hairless black marble. He loosed a feral smile, before schooling his face into a more pleasant expression. 
“Look up man, you’s big man now, no reason to hang head, and no reason to feel no way for that.” 
Slowly Darren lifted his head, to meet his scrutiny, taken aback by the warmth of the response and of the smile he saw.
“Darren, di rug not going get clean resting on your shoulder boy!” Mama’s voice sounded from the veranda a few steps away. Self-consciously, Darren jumped back and turned to her, to find her narrowed eyes which were trained on Pancho. 
“Morning Miss G!” Pancho hailed in a modulated, sweet falsetto. He saw her barely repressed recoil as she greeted him coolly with a wave, before retreating into the corridor. It stung, but ever quick to recover from such daily exchanges, Pancho rounded back on Darren. 
“Go do what you Mama say sir; soon midday.” And with a chiming wave of bangled  wrist he sauntered away, easing back into his power stride. 
Mama observed from the cover of her vantage point as her son watched Pancho leave, surprised to look at his face and see…longing? No, it must be the heat, and blinking she looked and saw the grit teeth scowl that was his work face, and shoved the silly notion of there being any other expression. 
Darren mercilessly whacked the area rug, each muffled “thwack” of the beater sending grey dust eddying in little whirlwinds. He was covered in it and inhaling ragged breaths through his mouth when his mother came silently around the house with the hose and bucket. She passed between him and the suspended rug, and placed them on the small square of asphalted ground where the scrubbing would take place, then just as silently returned to the front. 
She had begun to feel the niggling of guilt as she saw him haul the almost threadbare piece of flooring to the ground and, hose screwed and pipe on, began to soak it for lathering. I should have let him sleep in, she thought to herself, wishing she had the courage to apologise for insistently treating him like an errant child. As she squinted at the sun baked grimace of a boy wresting with manual labour, she lovingly noted how the line of his jaw and set of his forehead reminded her so much of his father. With a heavy sigh, she returned to the kitchen.
“It is completely unfair that he should be so free, so, so…so damn comfortable!” Darren fumed as he scrubbed at a gravy stain, venting in an intense whisper. 
Several minutes later, grudgingly succumbing to fatigue and hunger he headed for the shade of the large Ackee tree in the centre of the yard. The only respite in the hot, dusty and pebble filled space, the tree was the hub of all outdoor activity. He settled onto a cardboard topped juice crate, tilting a mason jar of ice cold water to his lips and enjoying its unimpeded flow down his throat as he guzzled. Nicholas, the seven year old son of the family who shared their tenement stared at him, transfixed. It was a gaze brimming with the stark innocence of youth, and Darren, discovering his audience, found himself very unnerved at being its recipient.
“What you want Nick? Where you mummy?” 
The little boy grinned warmly, shook his head vigorously and ran off to another quadrant of the yard. Behind and some distance off, Marisa, the child’s mother had watched the exchange, a slow smile playing across her features. Her gaze lingered on the bits of Darren’s torso unprotected by the cotton vest, a tingling heat uncoiling at her core.

~*~*~*
“Are you sure about this?”
“It is the last party for the year Darren, don’t be a punk.” Omario said, admiring his handiwork over his canvas’ shoulder as he turned him to face his full length reflection. 
“Yea…but… these are so…close.” 
Darren gestured to the close fitting pants and sleeveless bejewelled pullover that currently left no part of his body’s contour to the imagination. He watched his friend’s reflection roll its eyes dismissively as he turned to retrieve some other complimentary article to the ensemble.
“Darren, you are a single sweet and considerate guy, who severely needs to get out there!” A dramatic flourish of purple as he brandished a cable knit cardigan. He rejected the piece and it joined the growing heap on the left of the wardrobe. 
“I don’t know about all that, but I’m a content hermit. Do I have to come?” 
Darren’s plea had been met with no response. 
“Aha!” was the victory cry as Omario emerged from his task clutching a white shirt that looked made of Lycra and accented with stainless steel detailing and zippers.
In companionable and anticipatory silence they got into the waiting cab and, directions given, waited while ferried to Sunkist Planet: Apocalypse; the final event of the alternate lifestyle calendar. 
As they disembarked at the dimly lit and well decorated venue, Darren became rigid with tension. Barely tamping down the urge to panic and flee, he resumed breathing when Omario squeezed his bicep reassuringly and offered a calming smile. Meeting and holding his gaze, Darren supplied his own shy mimicry of one. They presented their tickets and entered. 
Darren was completely floored by the vista laid before him: couples of various assortments danced erotically; groping and gyrating in time to the steady thump of a playlist of bass driven mindless pop love-anthems. His eyes adjusted, he watched as others mingled, ate, drank, or holed up in dark spots passionately devouring each other. He was led to the bar, and after being presented briefly to the host, was plied with three shots of an almost phosphorescent green drink, which went down smoothly to settle as a tantalizing burn in the pit of his stomach. 
“I’m going to go find the other guys D, you stay by here.” He nodded in agreement as Omario sashayed into the growing melee, hips swaying in his rhythmic confident gait. 
“Darren? Wait deh…Darren?!”
 An ominous clang of bangles and bracelets made him very slowly turn to face the source of the voice, and locating it, was rooted in position. Lithe arms flailing excitedly, Pancho made his way over to where Darren stood by the bar counter, towing – to his added horror – Marisa, who, on seeing him, shifted expression from giggling humour to a mask of absolute shock, then revulsion (or was that hurt? he briefly amended). 
“Wow man Darren, if I did know…why you never say nutten boy?! Marisa, you did know?” oblivious to either party’s discomfiture Pancho ploughed on good naturedly, ordering drinks for himself and Marisa, who snapped up in time to refuse the offer and, claiming claustrophobia, retreated to just outside the venue.
“I still cyaa believe though Darren – a how long since you deh ‘bout?” Pancho, in typical animated fashion did a sweeping wave over all Darren’s features. 
“I have always been gay Pancho, I also have always valued my privacy. I feel I have made a terrible mistake in coming here. I am very sorry.” Ever courteous, Darren excused himself, slowly being loosed of his sensibility as a walk became a shoving brisk march. 
He felt the walls closing in; the artfully draped cloths menacing serpentine restrains coiling around his limbs and crushing his neck. Free of the enclosure, he broke into a flat out sprint, ignorant of and uncaring for the concerned glances that followed his pell-mell scurry down the steep mountain road. 
He frenetically hailed the first bus that came, and jumping in, sat in the darkest corner of the vehicle. As they pulled away, his breaths slowed, and the drop in adrenaline reawakened him to his current state of dress. His clothes were still at Omario’s apartment. With great effort he managed to avoid panicking, and remembered his laundry, which should still be hanging and somewhat dry on the clotheslines in the backyard. Hopping off the still moving coaster, he stealthily made his way down his street, staying mostly in shadow.
 Making it to his gate unnoticed, he bolted around the house and quickly donned a pair of his loosest denim shorts, hastily trading the top for a white slim vest. Calmed by the act, he retrieved a hamper from the shadowed foot of the Ackee tree and removed the rest of his laundry, folding them and filling the container. Aroused by the rustling in the yard, Miss G shifted her room curtain, surprised to see Darren diligently folding as he unpinned the pieces off the line. 
He really is a good boy, she mused, before settling back into bed. 
An hour later, awash in cold sweat and with no more reason to defer entering, Darren made his way down the corridor and opened his door, hamper resting on a hip. He gingerly engaged the lock, and fell hard onto the couch, where almost immediately he fell into deep troubled sleep. 
Waking a little past sunrise, tense and awash in sweat, Darren rose with an urge more pressing than usual to empty his bladder. Not wanting to pass through his mother’s room to the toilet, he made his way instead outside, to find some corner or fence post to relieve himself. As a steady streamed poured from him, his head snapped around at the sound of fast approaching footfalls. It was Nicholas, running toward him, a beatific, unnerving expression on his sweat shined face. Without slowing he ran right into Darren’s thigh, gripping it with arms and legs, narrowly avoiding the still spouting stream. 
“Get down Nick, go back inside. Where you mummy?!” Darren stamped the imprisoned leg, to the gleeful shouts of an entertained Nicholas, delighted at the discovery of this new game. Darren’s pleas to be left alone and attempts to remove his fiercely clinging assaulter all met with failure as Nicholas hung on for all he was worth. 
Hearing the subdued rustling of activity just outside her window, Marisa started awake, and felt the cool spot on the bed where her son usually lay. She moved her curtain aside to investigate the source of the disturbance and shot out of bed, unhinged. 
“Leave him alone, nasty pervert, move fish and leave mi son alone!” 
She descended upon the pair, and began to frantically pull at her child, eventually prising him from Darren’s leg to hold him tightly to her torso. 
Finally relieved of his captor, it took a moment for the shouted words and the expression on Marisa’s face to truly permeate his thoughts… and to realise that persons, hearing the din had slowly emerged from their homes or peered through windows at the scene. Incredulity turned to panic when, as he faced her to rebut her accusations, he felt the cold sweep of air on the wet skin of his groin. In his preoccupation with the tussle he could not really have…forgot? His face drained of all blood at the full extent of what the scenario presented. He only had seconds before one shout then another erupted, and then the clang of missiles being launched spurred him to flight, speech deserting him, and indeed purposeless at this point. 
Babbling incoherently, zipper still undone, Darren sprinted past a bewildered Pancho, who staggered slowly up the street. The mob rounded the corner just as he was about to call to the fleeing man, and he stood rooted as the throng advanced on and then past him, parting and reassembling as they chased their quarry. Bringing up the rear was a livid Marisa, son in hand, his face set in wide eyed terror. 
“Pancho, Hold Nicky for me, carry him to Marie and Omar tell them fi keep him, mi jus’ catch Darren a – him –“ 
Breathless with rage and exertion, she gave up all attempts to continue, shoved Nicholas into his arms and, lifting the skirts of her dusty nightgown jogged to catch the ranks of the mob. Pancho stood transfixed as the unit gained slowly on the lad. 
Shock abating, Nicholas leaned into Pancho’s neck and his breathing settled. The boy had been exhausted by the ordeal and was falling asleep in his arms. Pancho opened the metal gate to Marie and Omar’s tenement, an unsettling dread forming a knot in his stomach.  

 - Carl- Anthony Hines

Short Story

     "The Lord is risen."
     "He is risen indeed. Alleluia!" The congregation beamed at their new priest, a beatific expression on his face. Reveling in their admiration, proceeded to give a passionate (if a bit halted) sermon on the concepts of faith and doubt. Matthew, seated behind the lectern on the rostrum, stifled a yawn, shifting to discreetly wipe his eye on the sleeve of his starched white acolyte's robe. He glanced down at the floor, bathed in the colourful light from the stained glass window above and behind him. startled from his reverie by a blare of voices, he was forced back into the awareness of his surroundings by the choral wall of sound slamming him in the face and eardrums from the all too near speakers before him, their feed from the choir loft opposite him. "Typical," he thought with a wry chuckle "that on resurrection Sunday the choir chooses a song that is almost totally unrelated to the observance." This service, they decided to butcher Randall Stroope's "The Conversion of Saul". one of his favourite A Cappella anthems. he did an inward cringe that very nearly became external. schooling his face into what he hoped was an appropriately reverent expression, he continued to muse "I can see why the new churches shout, God would probably have on earmuffs permanently after innumerable Sundays like this." he chuckled at his own joke, glancing up to the choir loft, following the exuberant gestures of the group's director, the aging but surprisingly robust Mr Deacon Dean. He chuckled again, almost chortling suppressed into a snort. At the final "Alleluia!" of the anthem; a warped, jagged and much flattened chord ringing through the chapel, aresounding "AMEN!" sounded from the congregation: whether to communicate their relief or one of congratulation was a matter of opinion (it wasn't).
      At the end of the benediction, Matthew took the cruciform back to the altar and proceeded to the changing room to remove the "linens of office" and again become "just Matt", holding off his canonization another week (another chuckle)

Short story...

I walk through the rusted gates into lands I've always known. it is dark, and the penlight I take with me creates more mystery than its absence would have. a rustling to my left elicits a jerky arc, and I send my spotlight into the hedge that goes up to my knee, a ball of fur bolts between my legs, and a whine and yip of amiable excitement placate my spiked pulse...
"Oscar, why're you out here buddy? who let you out?" I get on my knees and ruffle his auburn fur, and pat his muzzle...it doesn't occur to me to be suspicious that Oscar died the previous year of old age, and had by that time had grey hairs in his mated fur, and was too lame to gambol as he now did... but then, it never occurred to me that I could share his status; that I could be deceased as well. I took it for granted that I should be at my full height of 6 feet, standing without the aid of crutch or post, when I had spent 5 years prior confined to a wheelchair...A wind came in from the west, picking up momentum at my back. urging me forward.
"seems whatever took me here wants me to continue forward...c'mon boy, I'm glad for the company "...

Short Story again...

So, I WAS going to write something personal...but then I do as I always do when I realise Ive gone too deep, and end up avoiding self probing in favour of something light...Here Goes

“In May…I remember…roses…”

“Must be nice, to remember” I mused aloud, as I stood in the kitchen, snatches of Mrs Harcourt’s garbled musings floating by on the air, her haunting voice still sonorous after decades off the stage. It has been my weekly duty to maintain the home of our neighbourhood’s ‘sweet old lady next door’, often foregoing the awkward social dance of adolescence so wholly embraced by everyone else my age. I had stepped in for a glass of lemonade, and a brief respite from the summer sun’s fierce onslaught as I toiled at the flower beds beneath the Porch and front windows.

“Oh, and dancing! Such delightful dancing that it was as if we moved on clouds and not the flagged stone floors of the great hall…”I poked my head in the sunroom, where she sat on her spindly chintz armchair, a delicate demitasse poised at her lips for a dainty sip. She looked absently at the table before her, on which she had arrayed her complete discography, then to the chair identical and opposite her own.

“Then when they had announced that there was a starlet amongst the crowd, such a twitter rose around me, whisperings and murmurings as everyone tried to figure out who the celebrity was. I was tickled pink,” here, she hid a giggle behind a tiny palm. “Though outwardly to my escort I feigned displeasure at the loss of my privacy…” I observe her beatific smile in profile, blushing as my presence went unnoticed.

“Mrs Harcourt? Are you okay in here?” just my first time, and I hated this; intruding on her reverie. Though her daughter insists it was not healthy. In my opinion, if it makes her happy, doesn’t she deserve to do it?

“Oh Anthony, I didn’t hear you come in, I’m just here regaling Ms Bradbury about the early days of my career.” She gestures to the empty armchair opposite her expectantly, turning her head in that slow graceful manner. Thus gently imperioused, I turned, and in my most polite voice uttered:

“A pleasure, Ms Bradbury, how are you this fine afternoon?” I looked in earnest at the armchair, as if, for all intents I were really seeing her interviewer.

“I am just splendid Anthony, My dear friend Agatha speaks quite fondly of you. How are the camellia’s coming?” so utterly shocked at the response I dazedly look back at Mrs Harcourt, on whose face is the most puckish grin. After a growing silence, in which I contemplate my sanity, she asks, still with a glint of mischief in her eye

“Well? How are the new darlings of my garden Anthony?”

“They thrive well.” I answer, my voice suspiciously thin. “The grafting was successful, and they should be budding any time now.”

“Oh, I am glad to hear it, I do so look forward to my visit next month.”

“Next month ma’am?” I quickly turn my gaze to the armchair, then shift back to Mrs Harcourt in three quick volleys, my confusion growing.

“Yes, it’s why I called, I had just come back to the states and thought to chat up Aggie here, one thing led to another and now we’re still here talking, lost to the past. Forgive us old ladies our long reminiscences.”

“That’s not the reason for our dear Anthony’s bewilderment I’m afraid.” Said my host, impish with delight. “He seems to have thought, and I assume with influence from Sarah, my eldest, that I was engaging myself-or worse, some invisible entity- in avid conversation!” Ms Bradbury makes rushed breaths that I slowly come to realise is laughter. “Oh, but you should have seen the look on his face as he said good day to the armchair!” she again daintily giggled behind her delicate hand. I shook my head and politely withdrew from the room, an embarrassed chuckle escaping as I opened the doors back out onto the lawn.

random scene...

We spent the day simply enjoying the cool of the river and the warmth of the sun, walked and waded, laughed and chased each other as the sun moved higher then lower in the sky...I sat by you...we reclined by the side of a clear cool spring, speaking of things not yet come, of our fears, of our joys, the sun falling on our tranquil forms, shadows falling on the serpentine water, meandering down and away from us...

"What of the evenings when you go off by yourself? what do you do then?" you gaze at me, face cocked to the side in that adorable why, eyes aloof yet intent. I reach up and put a lock of your hair behind your ear, from the vantage point of your lap I see the lines of life on your beautifully angled face, caressed as it were, by  the hands of time. I close my eyes and delay, allowing my face to slacken as if in absent thought, though we both know what I intend to say; this question is never new to our talks.

            "I go to commune with myself and nature..." I open my eyes and look bemusedly as the lock I moved falls right back to its place. "when alone, I feel lighter, disjoint from all the things that make me feel weary...its sort of like little retreats to recharge the energy supply I drain through interaction."
               "and do I add to the heaviness?" your grin is positively impish, as your hand is rested on my head and my cheek, framing where your sundress has not so I am surrounded by your touch and the heady scent of you...
               "you don't, and you're quite aware you do not, but if I ever take you with me there'd be no stillness my dear." a soft chuckle is stopped in your throat, you look into my eyes, and not for the first time I feel you see way beyond the surface of who I am.
                 "I often wonder if you think of me when you're in that space." you look at my hair, knowing you needn't see my eyes to know that my next words will be true.
                "always, my dear, you are my anchor, and so long as I am moored with you I have bliss." you find my gaze and we share a smile, joy illuminating your face until the sun behind the canopy of branches pales in comparison. we pack our things and leave our secret place, your arm in mine as we always travel, an easy grace bred of affectionate familiarity...