there i am.

Something warm.  I remember something warm grazing my face, my cheek, I'm not sure where exactly because I was only coherent enough to notice the warmth pulsating from that general vicinity.  I also wasn't sure where I was physically at.  I hadn't been sure for a while because I had been on the move, seemingly jumping about from one city, state, or country to the next every day or so.  There was so much traveling involved that I gave up on trying to keep track of it all, preferring to let my mind orient itself based on what I saw, smelled, tasted, not based on what a geography book might tell me about my whereabouts.  I told myself that knowing didn't matter -- if the details were important, once back at home, I could always align the pins across a map after the fact to retrace the steps I took.  So I started to forget the typical indicators - roads and signs and guidelines - because hell, they were all written in a foreign language I didn't understand, which made them all the easier to ignore.  The typically structured and orderly me finally gave up the good fight and succumbed to just rolling with things. 

Seconds before I was in a heavy sleep.  That warm sensation startled me and started to wake me up, if one could describe a weak blink from only one eye lasting half a second a valid attempt at awaking.  But the feeling was jarring, very noticeable, because I was cold and everything around me felt cold.  It had been raining where where I was at and subconsciously, I'm sure I knew that I was still in the tropics, moving about underneath a grey sky laden with heavy, plump, water-filled clouds.  I knew there shouldn't have been anything warm near me.  Yet there it was, but I was too tired to figure it out.  I went back to sleep.  But I felt it again.  It felt very nice against my cold face.  Soft.  Warm.  Warm, soft, soft, warm, there was a hint of a breath on my skin . . . and then I knew exactly where I was at:  I was next to him.

We had spent the past few weeks together virtually day and night, spending our waking and sleeping hours in tight, compact spaces.  Automobiles and buses and airplanes and cheap motels and hotels.   And while the world around us changed, varying from extremely different scenery of flat plains to red rocks to green forests to beige deserts to sandy beaches to volcanic mountains, we stayed grounded by hanging onto each other.  I chuckled a silent chuckle, unpatting that silent pat on the back I had given myself.  Because I hadn't traveled as much as I thought I traveled; I was always carrying a piece of home with me - him.  And in that moment, without having to open my eyes to confirm the accuracy of my guess, I knew he was kissing my cheek, like he has done countless times in the past, like I have grown accustomed to receiving, wanting, needing. 

While losing myself for temporary moments of time feels lovely, weightless, I like even better knowing that there is someone in this world who can bring me back to where I am always aching to be:  right next to him.