Desire

’Oh, hi.’ I said, as casual as you like.

I had let the telephone ring; counting, counting, as I tried to slow my breathing.
The days had inched forward, my panic rising with every minute. The absence of contact filled the space, the nothing becoming everything. When I called earlier (maybe it was the fourth time. The fifth?) I knew as I dialled it was a mistake. But my longing had seduced me into the attempt to fill the humiliating hours of waiting. I can’t recall what I said as I left another message, but my throat was thick and I worried after that I had just sobbed and howled. Maybe I did.
I ached to crush myself into him, to meld our bones together into a chimera creature. Never to separate, conjoined.
My black hair, his red hair; eyes so close I would know his soul every minute of every day.
I stared at my skin as I waited. I could feel where his hands had branded me. I marvelled that something so powerful left no visible signs; sometimes I imagined they would appear as gleaming mother of pearl trails of love, sometimes as hot molten lava flows of desire that oozed across my body.

‘Oh, hi,’ I said, as casual as you like. Then I said, ‘Please don’t leave me.’