WAKING WITH YOU I dream of waking with you white curtains moving in the room morning breathing in morning breathing out Your dark hair under my cheek your body still half-lost in sleep for a moment I don’t know where you end where I begin Outside the birds are calling someone’s keys in the street ordinary life keeps going but you’re still here with me And everything sacred is small your hand, your breath, the light on the wall your pulse beneath my mouth the world turned quiet somehow I don’t need saving I don’t need proof I only need the morning waking with you I have spent so many years trying to disappear be the right kind of woman easy to hold Not too much not too little not too wild not too brittle a softer shape a safer soul But with you I lose the mirror I let the costume fall I come back to my body I come back to it all And everything sacred is small your belly warm beneath my palm your throat, that trembling blue the quiet fact of you I don’t need saving I don’t need proof I only need the morning waking with you Love is not rescue love is not a room where nothing ever hurts us where nothing can move Love is recognition a light left on inside the relief of being seen and not asked to hide So let the curtains open let the city bloom let the voices rise below us let the day come through Everything sacred is small your skin, your breath, the light on the wall I arrive unfinished I arrive true I don’t need saving I don’t need proof I only need the morning waking with you Waking with you waking with you where I end where you begin I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know but I’m here with you
