I Sweep Away Your Sorrow

I sweep away your sorrow in the gaps of my heavy breath,

the air between us trembles,

laced with nicotine and the scent of a night running late,

like a shadow reluctant to part from its light.

And as you inhale your third cigarette,

I know—I have stumbled

into the restless corridors of your soul,

into the fading curve of your lips,

dim.

We are a pair of silences

searching for echoes in touch,

weaving wounds into the hush of skin,

erasing memory with a slow caress,

dissolving the space between you and me.

I cannot measure it—

the anger beneath whispered lies,

the residue of longing thick in my throat,

words that never became sound

now spilling into the breath against my neck.

Your body above mine,

light-footed in the dim glow,

like candlelight on a wall,

wavering, yet refusing to die.

I read you like an unfinished prayer,

tracing the pores that hoard

tremors, shivers,

and something that resembles longing,

or perhaps something even more primal.

We have no time for melancholy,

you whisper—

and I want to believe you,

even as I know

we are two bodies writing poetry

in sweat and broken breaths,

then erasing it before dawn arrives.

In this room, we will be eternal,

you say,

and for a moment, I almost believe

because in the weave of our limbs,

we are more than just shadows—

we are fire consuming itself,

turning to ash, then whole again,

again,

again.