-Imam al-Shafi'i
I remember the early days. The light-headed days of walking on shaky legs through slanted light to meet you at your truck where you waited for me like a big brother. You took me home the long way, but it was never long enough really. I was a kid, and you overwhelmed everything I'd known of life 'til then.
The sound of your voice, like the chime of the deepest bell in the cathedral tower, and your arm looped around my waist melt me into a puddle, render me immobile and unsteady.
I've known you forever, and I'll know you for always; we spin in and out of each other's lives like planets meeting once a decade, but you will always be a star in my sky.
Fourteen years, and every meeting feels like puzzle pieces joining together, like souls that know each other and speak from a place where there are no words. Our eyes meet across rooms full of people we know who see but don't see, may never see, and I feel a current of energy shimmer from the top of my head through my fingertips.
I talk about you to them, always offhandedly so as not to set off alarm bells, saying your name like it's a day of the week. And they talk about you like the weather, never questioning my interest.
February comes from the Latin februare, meaning "to purify, especially by fire or smoke"; how fitting then that we spent the early hours of the first day of the month staring down the last light of a fragrant fire, the smell of which stayed with me longer than the memory of your lips on mine.
And we continued our unspoken conversation, and I let you into my head, told you things no one would surmise. You responded with feelings I know too well; like trees we've grown up side by side in the same forest, and the years of too much sun, too much water, have worn us in the same places.
We doused the fire and went in to find just one bed remained unoccupied, not that it mattered. You called me by my childhood nickname and gently drew me to your side, our bodies matching each other's peaks and valleys. Without knowing what I was running from, I found safety in your arms. Our hands wrapped around the other's, mine soft, yours rough and capable, a mountain man come down to earth.
You fell asleep with my fingers on your collarbone and my head on your chest. I felt your body slacken beneath mine and your breath float away. In the morning I ran, in characteristic fashion, though you asked me to stay. I felt that I'd become a burden, but what I would give to be back by your side, in your arms, eye to eye, giggling and stealing secret kisses under the covers.
Every meeting feels like it could be the last, but we've always found our way back to each other, our orbits intersecting from time to time. We must have lived a hundred lives together.
I'm a river, deep and rushing forward forever, and you are a cloud billowing above me, unhurried, unworried, and gentle. No matter the distance, your shadow passes over me, spelling your name out on my heart until once more our obits collide.
