I actually didn’t mean to post this here, and I didn’t know I had until late last night. I feel kind of strange deleting it now. But thank you for appreciating it!

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in that moment you fancied that you could hear her heart, each beat enough to shake the ground beneath you both. you imagined that the bass-hum of music was the slow labor of her muscles, rhythm and rhyme. you wondered if it would go on beating forever—if she were somehow keeping the time of the universe. slow. slow. slow.

half-light threw the topography of her bones into relief, and for long moments you watched the pulse at her throat. slow. slow. slow. it made no leaps, no bounds, nothing but the measured march. slow. slow. slow.

you thought about touching her, wanted to discover if you could make that heartbeat race. your fingers reached into the space between. slow. slow. slow.

she shifted, and sighed, and slept on, and the shadows tumbled into the hollows and stayed. the thread of her pulse murmured, and was lost.

the bass rumbled and the grass around you answered, whispering in the breeze. you let your hand fall. slow. slow. slow.