You are safe, she whispered softly

stroking the crest of my cheek with her thumb and I could feel

the ridges of her identity in the tips of her fingers

like I could feel the water wrap around my body

that one day we dove into Crescent Lake in Washington—

cool, catch-your-breath-shock but it’s so beautiful and

purest blue beneath here with you. Let’s hold the

air in our lungs for a bit longer and look up

at the world shimmering above us, sunlight mixing

in the water; all our clothes were on the shore so

we’d have something warm to come back to

but with her

hands around my waist I had all the warmth—I need

you, I whisper back across the covers and she

kissed me like a flower passed between teeth

to bare skin, bare soul and center of hope, I am so full

of a hope-and-fear-of-falling-from-

the-glass cocktail, stretching me surface-tension-thin, eyes wide,

please be gentle, please, please, into the dark I call

not expecting to hear an answer with doubts so loud

but she’s there, and she stays. She stays, with her lips pressed to my

sharp edges, takes me in her mouth until I melt and absorb,

bind to body and soul, she makes me a new

destination, and takes me home.

I am loved, I know.