All the Possibilities

So people are social creatures?

That's what they say.

Go figure.

It's like there's a cinder block in my brain. And someone's jackhammering it.

He waited an appropriate amount of time before responding to assure her he'd listened.

His hands began to speak before his voice did. Swimming through the space between them like salmon upstream. She watched them and thought of how it reminded her of typing. Words really are better without sound.

Whether you read them or push them out through your fingers. Whether they seep in through your eyes and are burned into your brain or swim through your blood and burst awkwardly out of your fignertips. They're better then. Without out voices and inflection to change the meanings. They are naked and exposed. Ripe and defenseless. And they can only say what you want them to.

"I miss you", was his response. His remedy.

"How can you miss me when I'm right here?"

"But you're not here. You never are."

The jackhammer stopped and the cinder block split into two halves.

She looked toward his hands for the words he hadn't said, but they were motionless. She glanced at his lips and saw nothing in their queue.

She reminded herself once more how useless sound is for communication. Imagined herself scribbling poems on his naked back. The words being traced by the shadows of her touching him.

If he could feel them in his skin would he know then.