by yang yi xing, for ehre kinrizu
How tender is your touch,
how soft your breath,
how light your heartbeat, my love.
While you sleep, I have a tenderness like yours;
while you sleep, my heart is kin of your heart.
It flutters tirelessly while I look at you.
We held hands above the yellow scar of Mor Dhona.
I, too, am scarred;
I, too, must hold my jaggedness aloft
to scrape the sky of its stars,
to score my mark on the ward of the heavens.
You have helped me in this, and so
skewered the sun
on the point of your sword.
Thus do we hold hands,
as above the scar of Ishgard
severing land from land;
as two climbers on a mountain cliff,
as two wanderers fumbling in the dark,
as two women raftless at sea,
as two enemies of fate
mighty
and helpless,
our fingers like knots—
our hearts like butterflies:—
tied together.
We have been all these things,
now.
We have surpassed metaphor—
your longing metaphor,
parched beneath a tireless sun;
my aching metaphor
cracked in half
and in half,
and in half.
We have surpassed it.
We have made our selves real
and carried them as we have pleased,
in our arms, our own possessions, no one else's—
we have taken these selves so far
as to lie here, side by side;
that while you sleep, I might compose poetry
which you will not hear, which I will not speak
on our wedding day.
But you will forgive me
if I do not worry for your sake;
if I am secure
in your hands;
for your hands have weathered storms,
for your hands have weathered suns,—
that clasp mine,
perfect, ardent,
inseparable.
And how fierce is your breath,
how thunderous your heartbeat,
how defiant your presence beside me,
my love.
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(thanks for reading! if this happens to be chosen, i'd love the Gaelicap.)