5 More Minutes, Please

I’ll rest my head on the crescent shaped moon where the side of your face meets your shoulder, and I’ll patiently count the seconds between each of your breaths. Your chest will rise and then it will fall and I’ll do everything in my power not to move. Not to break away prematurely or give in to the natural instinct of my legs that are telling me that they crave balance. They want to be straightened out. They want me to just let them do their job.

I’ll rest there for as long as you’ll let me, for as long as I can.

I’ll flirt with the very idea that this could be the last time I’ll ever see you. You live all the way over there, I’ll point to middle of your Adam’s apple, on a map I created on your 5”9 body. And I live here, pointing to the tip of the nail on your pinky toe.

And your body’s laughter becomes contagious and together we’ll stand close and shake.

I’ll pretend I know the exact thing to say in this kind of moment. Something seriously maddening like: I’ll start washing my dirty dishes or I’ll quit picking fights with you over which TV show we should watch together on Tuesday nights.  All in a desperately embarrassing attempt to try to get you to stay. Just don’t go, don’t let me go.

And your lips on the peak of my cheek will silence my rants.

You don’t say a word. Your lips are sealed with Elmer’s glue as your heart tries to throw up dialogue that it knows it should say. I’ll feel your body zig before it zags and the mumbled vowel sounds of the ever-important I…U…Y…barely get their time in the spotlight before it’s all over.

The cleaning crew at the movie theater, the voice over the intercom at the airport, the beeping noise on your phone telling you it’s about to die.

It’s like this every time.

I have to go. You’ll say, like it’s a decision that can’t be reversed. Like there’s no room for debate.

You don’t have to do anything.

But they will start closing in on us. Cleaning up lonely pieces of popcorn with their broom, demanding a final boarding call on Flight 61 back to Los Angeles, a rapid beating countdown to a juiceless phone battery.

5 more minutes…

And you’ll break the puzzle pieces of our interlocked fingers and release a final kiss on my forehead. And I’ll stand there, swirling my eyes and try one last time to make you stay.

…please. 

Image – Love & Other Drugs [Blu-ray]