I want to be the last note lingering as the song fades out
and becomes a final chord to follow you into
your dreams and paint the walls you curiously touch,
trace your fingertips along before stepping out of the house.

You follow the cold night air,
ghostly mist swirling around when
you exhale and dry leaves crunch beneath your bare feet,
following a path to the woods,
the familiar trees and faint sweet cinnamon scent of the same forest

where we first kissed when I chased the music of your laughter
as the only beacon guiding my legs along cool soil and pale
moonlight until we embraced and I only knew the feel
of your body pinning mine against a tree

And your lips claiming me as
yours and only yours.

And even though you move through here alone now
you know a presence is near,
that memory has it's own energy that follows our
every step and carves itself into our sleep.

Your eyes grow entranced by a rainbow of lights pulsating,
flickering the closer you get to where we already met but it was
the first place we truly began to know each other.

But, like all dreams, the conclusion comes before
the mystery is solved and you awaken.

Unaware that I also dream while
sleeping close to your warm bare skin

Where you make all that cradles me like you once said,
when you confided in me that you wanted to fill my heart
with volumes books cannot contain,
longing cadences no creature could ever mimic,
how you wanted to stare into me and make illuminations
beyond any known spectrum of light.

The final glow when I slip into sleep and let memory after memory
stitch together and make a tapestry of you and I
that I've devoted every night to remembering

But like explorers who could once only travel by the
placement of stars and hand-drawn maps,
I can only go so far each time and the needle within
the compass I hold endlessly spins,
telling me each direction and destination you have made
for me is just as important as the last.

I follow every new dark ocean and know that your
presence is here in each coast I drift to,
that you're every ripple in the water beneath and even
if I crash you will be the ocean wrapped around me
as absolute and natural as the way your arms wrap around me now as I sleep

And you are each night the darkened sky is edged
with dawn's light before I awaken to your face near mine,
the same love that claims me
as yours and only yours.