Screen Kisses

It was freezing that night

The snow floated in the air like dust particles

Before resting on frozen black pavement

And the biting winds would sting your cheeks

But we were inside, cuddled up under blankets

Different ones.

We thought nothing of the hundred miles that separated our hearts

We were apart but together

Giving each other kisses through screens

And listening to real laughter through headphones

We joked and whispered under the moon and the stars

The same ones

We cried.

We sang words of someday

And with bona fide smiles and steady breaths scribbled onto pillows

We wrote out our vows for eventually

We’d accidentally fallen in love and scraped our knees

Dusted off the unease and got right back into beds

Different ones.

But our forever wasn’t done

And when I saw you smile on your end of the line

I knew the flowers would grow and the sun would shine

And life would go on

Everything’s fine

Because we have each other

And we would sleep.

And we would dream big dreams of sometime soon

When tomorrow would mean

We’d wake up next to each other and not on screens

And the kisses would be real and a hundred miles would be someone else’s car ride

The pain would subside

Because your lips would be my medication

400mg of I need you mainlined into my heart

Your laugh was a treasure

And I was a pirate

Your body was a plane and I was its pilot

Steering you right back to me when it got cold outside

And I knew that the water would be cold and unforgiving

Bringing uncertainty and trial on our shores

But that was all right because I was all yours

And you grounded me like the anchor I never knew you could be.

We’ll ache.

And the tidal waves of desolation will break

And the surges of too far might beat the smile off of anyone’s face

But don’t worry.

Because love will find a way back to the ones that believe in it

We are the galaxies in those with fire in their hearts and bullets in their mouths

Our words are cities

And with them we will make our own Eden

And we’ll be left

Whispering “I love you’s” into microphones and smiling with everything we have

Stretching our love over freeways and through Technicolor towns

We’ll tell our story in screen kisses and different sheets

But that beats sleeping alone

Somehow.

Because now I know that when the pavement freezes and the biting winds sting

I have you.