Hope is for people without money

There are days when I am breathing in fumes so toxic,
the scent of your skin burned into my memory;
you were my life let go, a match set to thread.

you're laying beside me, already asleep, while I am drifting
on a couch I don't remember the color of.
Your hair rests against your forehead, brushing your eyelids softly, a honey golden blonde darker by the ominous glow cast by the Spanish Channel.

It is 3 o'clock in the morning and while a faraway translation floats in one ear and out the other,
I hold your hand,
the only one compatible with mine,
fingers tanner in the winter weather, warmer, slender
in comparison to your soft body.
I am just fragile enough to lay on the edge of the cushions, my legs entangled in yours, and my cheek resting above your head.

I'm amazed at your patience.

You spent most of the night hunched over a toilet, hiding from me, knowing I was the problem and hoping I'll be the solution.

I know how I got here, crossed through water and ice to spend a five hour night in a dark basement, the sound of shuffling upstairs, and a poorly developed zombie movie paired with a set of badly rehearsed Spanish shows for company.
A constant leave of absence for a date with the upstairs restroom my only sense of loneliness, turned into a much needed discovery.

You were my winter song.

And now, as your breathing sings the loveliest song, I study the invisible blemishes on your face, the tv glow casting your skin as pale and un-nutured.

Or, maybe that's last nights dinner re-experienced a few hours before.