I won't be here again

I awoke that morning on my right side, blinking. A natural, grey light bloomed in my vision, gently illuminating the back cushion of a couch. I could make out the weak, neutral pattern of the cushion, at once both geometric and floral. My body was cradled in warmth: I could feel the fabric of your t-shirt through the gaps in the back of my dress, your hand was a gentle weight resting in the scoop of my waist. Must have slept in our clothes.

My right arm was curled under my head as a pillow. I closed my eyes again, the grey light continued to spin her web over the room. My legs were hot from the blanket you had brought to sleep, and I wondered if you were warm. I felt your breathing change, your arms shift, and the weight on my side slide along my contour. I sat up and raised my pillow-arm in the air for a stretch. I knew you could see my back through the slits in my dress. I looked over my shoulder at you and smiled. Something inside of me flexed her paws in her sleep.

"Good morning."

You turned over on your back, propping yourself up on your elbows.

"Good morning."

I lowered my arms from the stretch and self-consciously adjusted the bust of my dress. I maneuvered myself back down in the space next to you, and I came to rest my head on your chest. Your chest was very soft beneath my cheek, and your entire body gave way to the weight of mine, like a pillow-top mattress. My lashes fluttered. At close range, I examined the neck of your shirt, it was the color of coffee with cream. I noted that your skin was slightly lighter than it, the hair on your chest was sparse and small like spider legs, the crook of your neck was an inviting place for a face to press it’s mouth into, the arch of your Adam's apple bobbed when you swallowed spit as I placed my hand on the part of your torso left exposed by your tight-fitting, creamy coffee colored shirt.

"Are you hung over?"

"Mmmm, a bit," your voice softly rumbled from a deep place, "I haven't drank like that in a while."

"I think I only had half of my bottle of wine."

Your hand stirred from my back, and the movement awoke the creature that had been sleeping. She opened her jaws in the shape of a yawn and blew breath from an empty stomach out of her mouth. Your fingers struck out over new ground, gliding over skin, over the soft hills of vertebra on my spine, over meadows of small blonde hairs like fields of wheat, and traveled ever so slightly into the cave of space between my dress and my back. The hand paused, just beyond the mouth of the cave, and took a seat, daring not to breach the entrance. The creature from inside me closed her mouth and blinked once, sensing that the explorer's quest had stopped short. Licking her lips, she laid her head on her paws crossed in front of her. The moment was done, she would await another. 

I rose and went to the kitchen for a cup of water, hoping my body language would not manifest the discomfort I experienced as my brain slid around and knocked the sides of my skull. Must have drank more than half the bottle. I grabbed a red cup from the counter and sniffed it, I ran the sink and filled the cup up with tap water, I leaned on the counter and drank it all. I filled another glass and offered you some. You shook you head.

"I'll get my own."
"Okay."

I sat down on the couch and let my back slump into the cushion behind me as you stood up to fetch your water. Gazing vaguely at the coffee table, I bit the rim of my cup, my eyes sweeping over Dylan’s computer, a bag of weed (crumpled, from life in a pocket), some pens, a Dallas Mavericks pennant. You stood in the kitchen, sipping your water. The light was grey, solidly grey and bleary, disorienting, foggy, yet pleasant, still happy, still good. I stood up. I was drawn to the source of the light, I wanted to see it. I went to the balcony doors and opened one of them.

Behind the door was rain and chilly wind. I folded my arms across my chest as I stepped out of the room. Must have been the rain that woke me up. This was a rare morning in the Lone Star state. I was glad that I was here, and that someone else was here, too, with me, and that they could stand with me on the balcony, and that we could watch the street below us and the rows of apartments in front of us, peer into their windows, try to see their inhabitants; every person in every room a part of a hive of bees—all young, all prime, all ripe.

“Come, it's raining!” You came.

Dylan's balcony was small. It had concrete for the floor and metal for the railing.  The balcony was cluttered with various debris and belongings: red cups, discarded chewing gum, a girl's sweater and her bobby pins, cigarettes both fresh and smoked and my bottle of wine, nearly empty; what was left in it, about one glass, contaminated by rain falling through the slender neck, A shame, I thought, but I broke the cork getting it out, anyway. The floor of the balcony was half wet from the rain, half dry thanks to the awning, I stood in my socks on the dry part and pitched forward, leaning my hands heavily on the railing in front of me. I was beaming at the sheets of rain as they fell from the sky, sheet after sheet, like flipping through pages in a book, I thought, like a guitarist pulling his pick across the strings, I thought, like mincing a clove of garlic, rapid and thin. I looked over at you and beamed some more. The light from the sky was grey, so solidly grey.

A family ran under the balcony, the children wearing trashbags to keep from getting wet. They could have been going to church. It was Sunday, there was a church a couple of blocks away. A pair of white sneakers had been tied together and flung up over a powerline. Birds were eating from packets of Ramen that had fallen in the street from some drunken room above us, the noodles had cooked and softened in the gutter, the birds slurped them from the packets like worms from the ground, worms for the early birds.

You stepped out further on to the porch and shut the door. The creature from my old cold habitat perked up her ears as you placed your arm around me and faced the rain, she put her black nose to the air and inhaled, grasping at a scent. She rose, and I felt her begin to pace excitedly, working out the kinks in her legs. She would wait, patiently, knowing what the rain would bring. Her bestial mind understood that rain falls with the promise of new life. She would soon be able to feast on a cricket, on a mouse, on a lark.

I saw that a window was broken in the parking garage across the street.  I heard the metallic hum of an industrial-sized air conditioner. I saw flags and foldable lawn chairs on balconies, rippled by gusts of wind. I noticed a door open and shut. I looked up into the sky, I saw the grey light, I blew her a kiss. She smiled back at me with a mother's smile as she gently spread her blanket over the hive, urging us all to go back to bed.