You are a man-animal when you sleep. Your breath rustles past airways I would leap through; want to lie beside. You are heavy. Barely awake, but an instinctive arm over and around the shape of me, nustling me in. I can do all the things I always do, forget nothing, explore every side of myself, onward, onward, and something lets me breathe more deeply than ever I have; lets me submit; lets me choose to, only because of you. You ache inside with all the things you understand, and I have seen the same things, and made light of them; I widen a single eye and you release, curling up your mouth, finally understood. Didn’t you build your empire, row by row? Didn’t you burn paper money to find something more real? I was waiting, all that time, and lighting matches, too.

In the spaces between the floorboards, underneath your feet, I was whispering to you. When you opened and closed books and pathways, I leaned in and wondered. As you set your choices in stone and hurled yourself through life stages, I was born in your mind. On your wrist is a timepiece I sometimes think of; have you heard it beat and move? Let it slip. Sometimes it isn’t there at all, because I am there, turned over, in your palm.