When Will You Hear Me

Wait. Please, please, I can't feel my life. I lost my breath.
Wait?
Yes, wait. I need ~ I need a moment. I have to find myself; I have to remind myself who I was before you.
You're not okay, are you?
I'm fine. Fine, fine, fine. Dust where cool liquid tears should be and I, I am fine.
Fine, like when I say that things are cool. That's what fine means. What's wrong?

No, I am fine. I'm fine. Just wait a second. It's such a small thing to ask, a tiny itty-bitty second.

You know you can talk to me, right?

I know, babe, nothing to say. For words are never what I need them to be, they are weak and without credit.

You know I appreciate you?

*Painful smile and small laugh* I know. I do, it's why I am beside you. Always.

Is it your heart?

*Another weak smile* No, I feel great ~ good, at least. My heart? My heart is dead, hung with the roses to dry. To be kept as a dark and brittle reminder of the girl I once would have sworn you were.

Quiet, she is uncomfortable.

For the first time ever,

I see her insecurities.

To a degree, they mirror my own.

Hey, hey?

What?

You have to know that I love you.

*Nod, because the burn in my throat is spreading and I cannot talk around it* I know, that's why I am always where you need me. Always where you can find me ~ should you look. Always what you need me to be. Always here. Eternally. Always.

Her arm around me,

her smell,

her memories ~ our ~

mixing with the her of my present.

*Half-hugging her back as we stand there drunk and slightly sway* What I don't get is how I hear your whisper through the violent storm, I feel your pain in my own flesh, see your face in my sleep, read your thought, that forever I am what you need, finishing your sentences. How is it that I am your completion, as sure as you are my angel. Souls which would not thrive with out their twin, and this is all true. How then is it that you don't hear what it is I really need you to know that I am saying?