I am putting us inside a paragraph to freeze an emotion I have no other way to express. The feeling of your heartbeat on my back, breathing in a way where I knew you weren’t asleep. I had hoped your eyes stayed open for the same reasons as mine. How you said goodbye, but still came back. How I wanted you to know all of my cells wanted to stay.

I can think of no other word but connection. A slow compounding connection. One where starlight lasts forever, a sunrise steady on the horizon. Here in these sentences, we could stop it with our hands. Give us more time to let our heads rest softly against pillows. If only for a little longer. A simple place, even if it was an empty room on the floor. A place where awkward and comfort came together disguised as stuck socks and laughter. Where fear didn’t exist, we couldn’t even remember the word.

Whatever we were, whatever we are, sealed inside here so I won’t have to wonder. Won’t have to forget. A place where I found freedom beneath the skin of someone else. Fingers tips and safety, a bed that didn’t belong to us. We had moments for two people somewhere far enough away. Away from the meant to be and hopeless romantic rhetoric. A space where I pretended not to remember meeting you. A place I can tell you I absolutely did. Because it’s trouble falling into longing and we are bodies too determined to entertain it.

With words, you can feel something in moments without wondering why. Brief but real. Last night, I decided that’s what infinity really is. Something more than mathematical answers, more than a symbol to encapsulate never ending. Never ending was your arm around my back. The room was cold, we were not. Your kiss on my forehead trumped everything, infinity. I wanted more but it was the only one I needed. A future of missing love letters, but, here is the only one we need.

A need for the infinity I discovered inside of your ribcage. Because I know for certain my bones are held together with string. One tiny pull and they come tumbling apart. My feeble spine nothing against the weather, one gust of wind, my body following suit. But my bones, they are safe here in this essay. Safe here with you. The sky was grey, hiding the sunrise. This morning, the only time I ever wanted it to be delayed. Infinity in what I had wanted. I shut the door, a pause before the five words “I wish I had stayed” crossed my mind. Before the bus plowed toward the snow.

This is where we will exist.