Wednesday Night Sensory Inputs

Lemon under the arms instead of the usual. Linen asks for restraint, so I gave it some. Nothing heavy after the shower, no oil, no weight. Just skin and cloth and whatever the day wanted to do with them.

It wanted to keep me cool, mostly. Cool through the early dark of the gym, cool through the coffee, cool through hours of work that moved like it had somewhere to be.

Then the music, and after the music, the walk. The night decided I'd earned a little heat. By the time we reached her street I was shining with it.

We cut through the cemetery on the way, haze off the streetlights pooling on the far side. She watched the ground like it might open. I spoke to it instead: we come in love and want to leave in love. Leave you where you are to rest. The ground stayed where it was. So did we, moving.

Her house was cool. Some part of me reached for home, my own shower, my own bed, the familiar exits. But the body knows the difference between sweat and dirt. It cooled. It dried. It stayed.

A good night. A slow morning. Then home, water, work, the week continuing as if nothing had shifted.

The lemon held, by the way. So did I.

From Here.