Fragments

And this will be in fragments because that is how you’ve left her, in shards at your feet and you don’t even care that you’ve left a bloody mess.

*

His fingertips traced currents of electricity over the underside of her forearm. She imagines white yellow ribbons flowing in her bloodstream, sparks flying as the blood cells collide with each other like bumper cars, and that’s where the blips of static shock came when he touched her. If that current between them could be seen she’d imagine it would be transient whisps, spreading like severed spider webs along the cabin of the car, connecting them delicately.

*

A blue jay flickers past the windowpane and a fresh cup of coffee harbors steam in front of her, vanishing just above her chin, his nose in the crook of her neck smelling like morning and toothpaste, and she tells him how the smell of brewing coffee makes her feel drowsy and safe, that she woke up to that smell since she was 3, her father brewing coffee in the kitchen. And he talks into the softness of her neck about how she makes him feel the same way, like that cup of coffee.

*

Her arm is bare against the flush of sheets, now the pale color of the skin of an onion from muted sunlight through makeshift curtains. She is naked, the sheet pulled around her waist, her breasts exposed, pressing into the middle of his back where it arched. And the thin gold band that orbits around her forearm glows eerily like a solar eclipse. He inhales and exhales with sleep that took them both by surprise and he wakes her with breath that tastes like caramel and malt beer, a weekend morning breath after a few yawns. And it is in these moments where the sound of their breathing and the absence of words throws them into the tangle of each other.