There were times I’d imagine those were your hands. I’d space out, start breathing through my mouth, and let my head tilt back. All too suddenly, it would end. I’d admire my fresh haircut in the barbershop mirror. And I’d leave to go home again.

There were times I’d see you in everyone I’d encounter. Some divine aspect of you, reflected in some superficial way, would touch my heart. But it was contrived, and it was a lie. Nobody compared. I couldn’t be myself with them. I’d get quiet, I’d find a reason to go home again.

There were even times I allowed myself to dream. And dreams never stay that way. As dreams. They begged to exist, in a way that forced me to share them. They begged for color, and form. Soft lines. Deep, charred curves, and names of their own. I surrendered this to them. I would bare myself and all these works before the world. And when they found acknowledgement in the realm of the extant? After the parade? I found myself alone, with no excuse to go anywhere but home again.

But before that, before letting go, I remember knowing you. In the real manner of knowing a thing; For what it is, in place of what it’s generally accepted to be. Not by the eyes, not by touch, alone. We spoke chest to chest. Chest to back. Our tongues danced for their lives. Racing against time. Soaking up every trace of sugar in one another’s blood. We tasted each other’s pure essence. So many hopes. Could you be real? Could you come home?

That was home. That basic trip. You were not flesh and blood. You were the edge. You were the tip of somebody’s tongue. You were the first glimpse of sunlight, beckoning the dawn.

And oh, when you rose before me…

Before me, I saw the Heavens, the Earth, and the depth of the Great Abyss, all displayed in full color, and in a symphony of lamentations, joyful songs, and creaking tree trunks. There, was sprawled the epic tapestry of the cosmos. There was not a corner that went unlit by the breaking day. I met the eyes of cherubim and seraphim. I knew that I had to go before it left me blinded. I had to go home again.

I did go. And nothing else ever felt much like home again.