A Note to My Lover, I Fear My Hope

It’s 6am where you are. 617 more precisely. I imagine you shuffling about, quietly trying to get ready in the half-dark, no shirt on yet, still damp from your morning shower.

I want to taste the tiny drops of water clinging to your shoulders, feel you melt under the weight of my lips.

You’re trying to remember everything you’ll need: your toothpaste, hairbrush. You won’t take your razor, not this time. I wonder how your beard has grown since I last felt it. I imagine the scruff of it between my legs, your tongue teasing me, your strong hands grasping my thighs.

They’re tan now. Not like you last saw them. The Thailand sun this week has stained me brown, pink in places. I wonder if you’ll like it.

Maybe you’ve grabbed a protein shake, and you’re carrying it through the kitchen as you lay out your passport, money, credit cards. Maybe you’ve thought of me today. Maybe you’re sorry you said any of the sweet things you said to me this week. Maybe they were a mistake you wish you could take back. Maybe you haven’t thought of me at all.

I wonder.

Will you miss me while you sway on a boat in the Pacific, squinting in the sun from behind dark glasses? Will you wish that you could send me a note, to read my reply and know I am missing you? Do you ever text me, just to know that you are so loved?

Or maybe I’m just pictures to you, pictures of body parts I’m not always comfortable taking. Maybe I’m just the…