We don't grow complacent for one another. Ben and I understand that in the blink of an eye or the turn of a heart or at the root of a bad decision life can change, and just like that everything is suddenly unbearable. We don't take each other for granted and we don't lie. We don't let each other hang, toes touching the breeze, without a net below.
We just remember to breathe and we do our best and when I wake up in the dark, in the quiet hours he is there and he is half asleep but still he pulls me over him and I am warm and I sit up and he holds my hands palm to palm and keeps me centered and I take what I need and when I am barely finished he slides me off and down underneath him now and his hands slide against my skin and his lips land on the top of my head and the bruises are set in stone from his hold. When we return to sleep we know it's for minutes only and then suddenly I can hear the alarm. Ben turns it off and returns to me and I am gathered into his arms and he squeezes me tight against him. I am waking up one goosebump at a time, incoherent, sleepy, feverish. He kisses my cheek and he is gone for the day and once again I am left to my own devices which are those that you kick-start and then proceed to use for trouble only.
He smiles when he leaves, and we begin the countdown to his return. Rocketman. Workaholic. Lover.
Yesterday after he sampled all of the baking I did (pie excluded, I will make that today), he offered me a motorcycle ride. A thinly-veiled attempt for some much-needed time alone together, something that once again seems to be in such short supply and it pains me. He drove up into the mountains, far away from everything and I clung to his back as he drove fast, too fast, and so very Ben-like. He leans and I am afraid, he races down the highway when there is no traffic, chasing the thrill that brought him to me in the first place. The attitude he wears like a cheap t-shirt slogan that has brought him everything he has and taken away everything he thought he knew:
Fuck it. Going for it.
Ben's a survivalist, a quiet man, a psychopath. He doesn't say much to very many people, he's busy saving all of his words for me. I cherish them, you know. I roll them over in my hands, feel their smooth letters and sharp edges and I keep them all, filed away alphabetically in big manila envelopes right beside my work. We both need to work on saying more, more often.
I would have started with Slow down, motherfucker, but frankly I was too afraid to open my mouth and maybe change our wind resistance or something and kill us both.
I told him this and he laughed.
