Wordswhisperlove

Thirteen hundred stacked against his chest, he fumbles to a desk

and

tells her

look what I found.


Doing her best Anne Hathaway impression, she leans

forward

and arches

her left eyebrow.


He waits for something that won't come.


She grabs one from the middle of the pile, spilling copies

of

King and

Palahniuk about the Formica.


His eyes begin to glisten like hot green wax pooling around the

wick

of a

pretty little candle.


She picked something by Bukowski.


He watches her, pining to see her exhale, letting it all out so she

can

inflate back

into who she used to be.


Breaths do come, but they're shallow and her

eyes

hollow as

though she's seeing only that in her periphery.


He wants so desperately to whisper the truth.


It would kill her to be shaken so violently

out;

awakened from

a sleep where compassion is feigned like a bad orgasm.


To scream I need you here, with me, beneath

the

words I'm

crying out for you to come back.


Though to suffer is to love, he thinks.


Bringing endless stacks of books to the table,

words

oft cherished

that shook him from the same slumber once before,


is how he loves. Through others, because sometimes

he

just cannot

be clever enough to express what could be
                                                                      love.