Is this the place?

He deals the cards to find the answer  
The sacred geometry of chance  
The hidden law of a probable outcome  
The numbers lead a dance 
                                      
                        -------- From "Shape of my Heart" by Sting

I know where you are. I know where to reach you. I know how you feel and what it takes to make you feel. I know what to do, to make you mine. I know.

Maybe I am wasting my years. Maybe chasing the idea of you all this time is more real than I can ever be. Maybe I can go back to the end of regret. Maybe.

I sit in the car at the top of a hill, engine still warm but silent now. It is a clear moonlit night and I can see for miles around me. The trees, they find reasons to hide in the unbroken view. Nothing dwells here, no lights, no smoke, no sounds. I sit for long as the night deepens.

I reach for the ignition key.

"Is this the place?", you ask from beside me.

Your name

But sometimes every word has been used,
and there is nothing left to do
but hold the one you can't have in the sweet arms of a tune.

                  ------- From "Sweet Arms of a Tune" by Missy Higgins

When the evening shadows lengthen, when the rest of the world goes quiet and the soft sea-breeze gathers courage and whispers through the curtains, I wait for your name.

Your name.

We play the long game, you and I. Maybe I will know your name, and maybe you and I will know what to say. We know the rules. And so I wait.

When darkness settles, when the flickering flames do their ghostly dance and the song that is buried in every movement comes alive, I wait for your name.

Spend my time

I don't know why I spend my time
writing words that you'll never read
with meanings that strain credulity

I lay beside you in the hammock on our beach, my face resting against your bosom, your beating heart filling my world. You are asleep and so I tell you that you have a beautiful smile. I tell you that I won't close my eyes, lest I lose you to a dream.

In the fading light of the sun, you lay rocking to and fro in our hammock waiting for me. I pause on our porch, watching the last rays of the sun bathe the contours of your body. Setting down the glass of Talisker whiskey on the wooden rail defining the porch, I walk down the few steps of beach to join you on the hammock.

I open the door to our home, walk in, and see your car keys on our kitchen table. Smiling with anticipation I shed my briefcase and shoes, loosen my tie, and pour myself a glass of whiskey. Two ice cubes in the glass, I turn the music on for the speakers facing our beach and am ready to dance with you. As I step onto our porch, I see the trail of clothes you have shed on your way to our hammock.

I call out your name, but when I look at the beach you are not there.

With every passing month, every passing year, it gets harder to write you into my life, but I swear by the words still left in me that we will dance together again at sunset on our beach.

Unrequited

Be in my arms,
be in my dreams,
be my love unrequited.

Another year is ending. With a fire crackling beside us, we sit on the carpet in our living room facing the wall of windows overlooking our beach. It has been snowing continuously for several hours now and so there is a beautiful quiet all around us. I lean further back against the pile of cushions propped up on the wall near the fireplace, and you lean back against my chest, my arms around you, my face resting against your hair. My eyes linger over your familiar curves, the rise and fall of your breasts, the flare of your hips, the dip of your silk dress as it drapes your thighs and legs. It never fails to stir desire, seeing you.

I reach for the glass of whiskey on the carpet next to us and you raise your face in anticipation. Smiling, I give you a sip, the cold of the ice inside tempering the fire of the whiskey. I watch you swallow, and then cup your face tilting it upwards to kiss your lips, tasting you and the whiskey, tasting you and me and kisses yet to come. 

The snow surrounds us and we sit and watch it fall in silence. Squeezing you deeper into me with my arms, I rest my face gently against yours and wait. It will be midnight soon.