Plastasine

His heart beat’s like a shadow in my ear. It’s not just the sound I hear, it’s the after math of the stomp, the dull, soft sound floating round his body, through his veins.

I don’t just feel warm, with my feet snuggled under his quilt, I smell warmth. I smell it every time I put my face closer to his skin. It seeps through my nostrils, the holes in my pores. A sickly sweet smell that fades just as it reaches its intensity.

If two bodies lie connected for long enough their patterns merge. Their breath is drawn in, out, in out, like one interminable creature…..

I heard somewhere that the longer you’re with someone the more you look like them. I’m constantly watching old people’s features. Seeing which ones have similar eyes, noses, drooping cheeks as their partner.

His is round and wide, like someone put a perfect ball of plastesine on his face and smoothed it down. Soft, seamless silk of malleable dough. I stroke the curves of my face, feeling where each dip ends and another begins. Caress the flat ridge where my nose becomes my forehead.

“what are you doing?” he breathes in my ear….

I drop my arm round his ribs and move further into his side.

“nothing…” I say, and stroke the lines of our ribs.