That moment as the towel begins to slide down your body as you’re fixing your hair after a shower the morning after. More and more white body revealed in the mirror, flushed pink from the pounding of a hot, hard spray.

I could not sleep. All night long I could not sleep.

The clean white terry of the towel on your skin, slipping faster once your arms give up to the conscious act of this brushing. Brushing. Your brain cannot hold more than this. Brushing. Short, dark hairs, pushed gently away from the eyes. These eyes. They have seen so much, set in a smooth young face.

And somehow you think you’re beautiful. Beautiful now that you’re clean. A dance with the girl in the mirror – there is love in this dance, through the shaking. Trembling limbs made still through exertion of will in the dim grey wash of morning. Small round breasts, revealed above the cloth. Pale, unmarked and smooth.

Let me paint this sorrow upon your skin. Hold still, hold your body still. Let me write this pain on your body.

You’re not sure if you feel dirty or renewed, every over-tired glance of your brain turning back, back to sweat, to pantings, to his mouth raised in perfect stillness above your head as his –stop!-- face –STOP!-- bursts –SHAKING!-- in light. He is gone. He is sleeping without of this bath, his face turned away from the morning.

Morning is rising still. Without. His room.

Dark.

Your hand on his back in a gentle sort of waking. Your hand wrapped around him, through covers and over to skin, the towel pressed close to your body now. Now you are close. Now your arm keeps it closed. His mouth. His mouth.

Sometimes it takes a good fuck to remember it’s kisses you’re missing.

I won’t remember this. I won’t remember this: that you’re an asshole or that you give good head or that I came six fucking times here you asshole you asshole you asshole. I’ll remember the way you cuddle. I will remember the way you kiss. I’ll remember being –STOP!— this --stop.—close.

But that’s not what you want me to remember. So I kiss you once more for remembrance. I kiss you for silence shut up shut up SHUT UP! In this moment as the towel begins to slide down my body once more, as I’m fixing your hair, hovering beside you with your hand growing closer and warmer, here, lost in the morning after.