kairos

the way two people find each other
across whatever line
someone else drew on a map,
the way love precedes
every document that tries to contain it —

I have been trying to convince you of this
for years, have had the words
the whole time,
have turned them over
in my pocket  like coins,
tested their weight,
found them accurate,

and still

the

 timing

has been a thing

I could not fix.

Tonight you are just
on the other side of sleep —
close enough that I can hear
the exact moment
you cross over,
the small surrender of it,
the way your breathing
changes its mind —

and I have it.
Right now.
The irreducible fact of wanting
you, specifically,
in this specific dark,
with this exact
and useless
precision.

So I write it down.

The way Luther wrote it down.
The way a man
in an empty room
with no one listening
still reaches for the page
because the alternative
is letting it
dissolve by morning
into something unremarkable —

and it is far from unremarkable.

It is the most true thing
I know how to say
and you are asleep
and the room is quiet
and I am writing it down

for you

in a document
you may never read,

nailing it quietly
to the only door
that has ever
mattered —

because you are the only church
worth worshiping in;
the only one
I have ever truly believed in.