come to my cottage where there’s no slamming doors and we don’t walk on eggshells and you don’t have to think about how as a child you memorized the sounds of footsteps on the hardwood and who they belonged to and how much to shrink yourself depending on the answer. don’t go back to russia because you always come back to me in pieces and pretend you don’t need to be put back together. i know a place that won’t break you. come to my house. we’ll have so much fun. i want to watch tv with you. i want to knock elbows with you while we brush our teeth. i want to taste your mouth while its still warm from your coffee; to suck syrup off your fingers at the table. i want every mundane luxury we’ve never allowed ourselves to have. it’s so private, no one will know. because they can’t. and for now it’s okay; i’m not ready for the world to have us when there’s so many ways i’ve yet to have you. we’d have a week, or even two, and it still won’t be enough. how do you make up for almost ten years of never seeing a sunrise together. never kissing with morning breath. all the things i might already know if i never left that time you asked me to stay. we’ll be completely alone, together, with our clothes in the same laundry basket and your hair on my pillowcase and the enormity of everything i want touching every corner of every room.















