[mature] we wrote our own story; brigade

[brigade]

There is a part of him that expects the sky to split open with a storm.

He expects the world around them to be set aflame. He expects the very ocean to rise up and then swallow them whole. Instead everything becomes very small. It all implodes until it is just a seed in his belly. It is a rising tension that makes him feel like he might fall apart; like his very body might come undone.

He can hear the sound of her voice low and needing; he can hear the way she calls him.

Later, he might imagine all the ways she is the siren and this is the rocks that he breaks himself on.

He might think about all the ways she is there to destroy him.

But not now. Not in this moment when they are snarled around one another; when they are curled around this heat that is like a dagger between the ribs. He breathes her name and feels the pressure rise until it finally happens. He sees stars and his head drops to her shoulder and for a moment, he just rests there, feeling the ocean mist and her and the sun that detonates in his chest until he is nothing but aftermath.

Brigade is not certain that he even remembers dismounting, but he does.

His neck is darkened with sweat, his eyes a stormy grey, and despite the exhaustion that slips through him like a drug, he comes up her side and pulls her close. He presses his lips to her brow and just breathes.

BRIGADE

when I was a man I thought it ended when I knew love's perfect ache
but my peace has always depended on all the ashes in my wake