Act of Faith

I am reposting this, with thanks to PB for edits on the poem portion.


The door creaks,
your eyelids shudder
into conscious
vision.

Those eyes,
speaking
more than I
while trying
to leave as gracefully
and quietly as you
lay sleeping.

Why leaving
now? Why slipping
away without
a single word?

How can I say
this? It is the middle
of the night, it is 2 AM
not truly morning,
and you, soundly sleeping,
slipped your arm
unconsciously over me
with an unknowing
affection and I awoke
from my fantasy
concerning a girl
from last week.

Yet already I am
in your dreams?
One humbling
simple act of faith,
when I cannot find
faith in myself
even to kiss you
goodbye.
---------------------------------------

He awoke around ten in the morning, the stifling air immediately flowing into his nostrils. As always, she lay asleep beside him. She didn’t rise, but dug herself deeper beneath the covers. He could feel her presence. It rose out from the bed, mixed around with the air and diffused into it, slowly suffocating him.

They were at some sort of conference when they first met; he couldn’t remember what it was for. By some strange twist of fate they had been seated at the same table, and over wine and a salad they had a little argument over this or that aspect of a talk. He found she had an unconventional sense of humor, an intriguing manner of speech, and he spent that night with her—and he stayed.

Intrigue was all it had been, though, intrigue and convenience, along with a none-too-healthy dose of sheer animal attraction. There was the rub. It was so easy to glide through the life she thought they were building together and see only those aspects. She could turn a blind eye to the world and look to him, while his own eye turned inward, seeking an answer to an unasked question.

But as he looked within, the without gnawed at him. His was an artless life, without observation. His was a life of staid convenience, of an internal creation that blocked out all else. The air grew thicker, and he felt that if he didn’t move, he would choke. Rising from the bed, his hip cracked and she turned over.

Quietly, he moved over to the desk, picked up a pen, and wrote. Not on any paper, but on the wood itself. The note was short, but would stay until scrubbed away.

He walked to the window and opened it wide. Outside the rain clouds were gathering, borne by a strong wind. The smell of an impending storm hit him full on, and he took it in. That was the world. He could live alone in it, or together in no world at all. His hand stretched out to grasp at the nothingness, the futility of it, and as it did, the first drop hit him like a hammer. Then it poured down, slowly at first. After a few minutes it came down in droves, a cascading waterfall. Continuing to hold out his hand, he looked back at her. She was still there, oblivious. For a moment he thought to kiss her goodbye, to execute the routine as he had so many mornings before.

But he had to break that connection, that simple cycle of events that occurred without fail each day. Wordlessly, he picked up his wallet and dropped it into his pocket. Walking to the door, he looked back again. She was stirring now. Quick, before it’s too late. Turning the handle he stepped outside, and the door shut itself with a soft click. He could hear her yawn, and he walked down the hall and outside. The rain still dropped, but softly. He had forgotten his coat, but that was all right. Every drop that fell on his arm he could feel.