I promise you that I'm still here,
not just the vague iris of a memory,
the superimposition of the impossible
or a dream that cannot be touched or changed,
led back to get bliss featherweight against your skin
as softly and warmly as the very first time
you began to helplessly bloom open to me.

It wasn't just wine and shadows in winter
or the electric thrill of someone so new,
the alien tremble of an unfamiliar body
opening and contouring to your own
as if knowing this may already be just like home.

And whether we know it or not,
there's no turning back after that first touch
and you can't understand me yet when it happens,
the sudden flash and outcry almost emitted in another
language's lustrous gulf shuddering against your form,
you see, our frames are undone and disrobed,
but now we're really naked, who we really are,
who we have always really been
long before cast far away from Eden.

But I promise you that I'm still here,
not just the iris of a memory,
the superimposition of all that was lost
or a dream that cannot be held or shared when
taken to bliss featherweight against your skin,
as softly and warmly as the very first time
I lost myself to the raw joy of you opening to me,
to the way your flesh sang gliding against mine.

It wasn't just shadows and wine and the way
winter seems to make us all feel even more lonely
as if our skin is too scared to be on its own,
it wasn't just the shuddering from the electric
thrill of someone so sudden and so very beautiful,
it's the trembling knowledge that this may
very well be our true home with one another,
that we may never open this way again.

And whether we know it or not,
this is the price for sanctuary,
to be someone's one and only,
there's no turning back after that first touch
and you still won't understand me sometimes
when it happens and we're all pure light and noise,
pure human need pulsing through the winter dark,
through the garden we were exiled from.

You have to understand me,
you'll already know everything about me by then,
we'll already be home by then.

And I promise you too that I'm still here.