as the brass faded with the tinkering of a cowbell

The music is beautiful during the daytime, when he is holding me and I am breathing in his hair, traces of cigarettes and soap. I beat my fingers to the rhythm on his chest, patches of curly brown hair spread with every tap, thump, and he smiles. His fingers trace my temple and I tell him how much I love that, our eyes align and there are flecks around his pupils, honey, soft. I find myself caught in suspension in those moments, when the world hasn't fully caught up to us, to this. I can say anything in those moments and feel the milky air brush us so soft. I think I love you, I told him. I want to love you, he says. Is this what love is, I ask. And the moment is still suddenly divine, when we share this space separated only by lungs and rhythms of the heart, bodies tangled under quilted sheets, over a tiny bed. I wish there were an emotion to describe that moment, other than happiness, one that describes the shivers I get when his fingernails cross my bare back, the feeling I get when he breathes out my name, that moment where we float together, when we forget the sins of our past, the uncertainty of the future. There are times when I don't know what I want, but in that moment I am sure that he is it, and I find myself in that certainty, in that longing. He's mine, with those eyes, long hands and calloused fingertips, and when he is holding me it suddenly becomes natural to strip myself of everything I hold up for the rest of the world to scrutinize. I have dreams of this moment when I find clarity in the world, beautifully unexpected, unexpectedly beautiful, when I belong as one piece unbroken. I take my jewelry off in these dreams and undress my thighs, pick up a microphone and move to the noises of the world, dance to the sounds of furious streets, crying babes, and raucous laughter. I find myself amidst the confusion, losing only what was not necessary to hold onto from the beginning, and I hold him tighter.