Salt Water & Stars

"There's more, you know," he says. I turn my head to look at him for a moment, but I say nothing, and then I look back up at the sky. "Than this, I mean," he continues, as if my silence indicates confusion which he must fix. He waits for me to respond, but I don't; at least, not until he opens his mouth to say more. At that point I interrupt his train of thought by saying, "We don't need more." These words startle him, throw him off, and he hesitates before asking, "What do you mean?" I turn to him and say, "I mean we don't need more. This is enough." I look up at the universe again, and watch as a shooting star flies across our galaxy, oblivious to the terror it is hovering above. "This is enough," I repeat again, but even to me, the words sound slightly forced, like water is slightly forced down your throat when you swallow pills with it. "What is enough?" he asks, his voice loud and bordering on angry, and I turn and see the fire in his eyes which first made me hesitate to walk past him. Sometimes, when his eyes are like this, I almost convince myself that it's real– that this is reality, and the distant memories which constantly tickle me are only rembrandts of incomplete dreams lost in waking. "What is enough? What could possibly be enough, when there's nothing left?" I am staring at the stars again as I say, "There's you." I pause, squinting at what might be a constellation, and then add, "There's me." Finally, I turn towards him again, and I set my face and murmur in the best tone I can muster, "There's us." He stares at me for only a moment before pulling me toward him, and I let myself go limp in his arms as he kisses me, a tanginess playing on my tongue and a saltiness stirring the muscles in my cheeks and reminding me of the salt-water taste which used to set my mouth on fire; the chill of the lips which used to send shivers down my spine. He pulls away from me with a bit of a gasp and stares at me for a moment before nodding, looking back up at the stars, and saying, "You're right. This is enough." But now my eyes are focused on a cracked point in the pavement, and my mind is yelling, there's more out there, you know. I swallow and look back at him, and for a moment all I see is the face of the boy with the salt-water in his mouth, before the vision fades and he's just him again.

There's got to be more.

© 2011