The Science Of Us Together
Together, we are archaeologists.
Tonight, I am studying the landscape of your face.
The ruddy cheek, the pointy nose, the way your mouth erupts in lines as I say something funny and kiss your forehead. The way your eyelids flutter closed and your breath gets hard as I run my fingers through your hair and nibble on your ear. Then, your chest. The chest that I know has hugged countless people in countries around the world, the chest that has hugged far fewer women in this passionate, bedroom way.
For this, I am lucky. The biceps that have lifted bicycles, lifted you, and lifted even me sometimes, so strong and manly. The hands, in gloves, touching pumps and compressors or bare and touching me. Caring. Hands that are rough from being used, not soaked down and buffed out by manicures, but proudly showing your life. They change costumes but not demeanor. The way the two bumps on the back of you look barely illuminated in the incandescent glow from outside, just calling me to run my hands along them, and then up your back, down your legs, in your thighs.
Beautiful. You and the way I feel with you.
Together, we are anthropologists.
For you, I tiptoe over your scars.
I glide over the happiness of your lost loves.
I sift through the sands of your history, carefully balancing, taking care not to sink into you, but not to step away. I must keep my questions at bay and know that some things need to stay buried.
My inquiring mind must not dig too far down, too deep.
Everything that needs to be known, you will present to me, everything in its own time. That I know. Like the oldest cultures that keep their traditions close, so you do with your most coveted information. Because knowing you, being the anthropologist of your life, requires me to use my full talent, my full potential, it means being well-versed in your geography, history, and culture—soaked in juxtaposition, at once multi-faceted in my knowledge of every detail and singular only in you.