our breath is weak & our bodies thin [scorch]

[Hestoni]

press my nose up to the glass around your heart i should’ve known i was weaker from the start It is odd, to him, how such simple words can take on an entirely new meaning just by the way they are spoken. When he hears her voice (purring and sultry and brimming with hidden meaning) his lips instantly work into a smile. He didn’t have to see her or hear her to know she is near – the fire and love and connection and honesty between them is an ever-present, alive thing and it only crackles more intensely when she is nearby. His entire soul, body, mind, heart, and spirit whispers for her – it only yells louder when she is close. They are twined together quickly, but it is not too quickly. After ten years away from her (ten haunting, dangerous, scarring, brutal, terrible years), they are still struggling to repay each other for what they have lost. They are making up for the years away, and each time they join together is another final word written on the license of their marriage. And he whispers into her neck lovingly as they become one, saying all the things he could ever say about her both in their language and in their lover’s language and in their body language. She admits to having a surprise for him between her gritted teeth and he continues patiently and lovingly with their exchange. He doesn’t feel the tripwire as she does (he doesn’t feel their lovemaking turning nothing into one and then one into two). But he does feel the Jungle’s magic caressing against his bones – igniting his tattoos with even more fire before it dims down to seep into his body. Suddenly he feels younger, he feels the hold of immortality dancing through his aging bones and fixing the places where time and elderliness might have been damaging him. When they come apart, when they slowly wind down but still remain wrapped against each other, he nuzzles his lips into her cheek and whispers, “So we can stay together forever?” She should be able to feel the smile on his mouth; she should be able to hear the way he whispers forever as if it has always been a fantasy and now it is suddenly a reality; she should be able to sense the way his muscles quiver and shake with the excitement of being with her until they both decide to move past this world. “Ti amo, il mio bel fuoco.”