Euphoria
I don’t pretend to understand the mystery of love,
but it’s more than sex.
It is being lifted off the earth,
outside fear and torment,
being part of something greater than myself.
I was lifted out of the dark cell of my own mind,
to become part of someone else-
what I have experienced with you.
It was the first step outward to the universe
-beyond the universe-
because in it and with it,
we merged to re-create and perpetuate the human spirit.
Expanding and bursting outward,
and contracting and forming inward,
it’s the rhythm of being- of breathing,
of heartbeat, of day and night-
and the rhythm of our own bodies set off as an echo in my mind.
It’s this indescribable way that you are.
This is the way we love,
as night becomes silent day once more.
As I lay there,
I understood how important love is,
how necessary it is for us to be in one another’s arms,
both selflessly giving and taking.
The universe was exploding,
each particle away from the next,
hurtling us into dark and lonely space,
eternally tearing us from each other-
child out of womb,
friend away from friend,
moving from each other,
each through his own pathway toward the goal box of solitary death.
But this mystery,
this love is our counterweight,
this act of binding and holding.
To keep from being swept away,
we clutch each others hands.
Our bodies the link,
an intimate chain that keeps us from slipping into nothing,
and you are the way I stay from slipping into dark-
my safety, my world, my love.