I approach your body with the same mix of fear and adoration with which I face my own.

The same care.

Concern.

Fascination and pride.

It’s a sense of responsibility, I suppose. A sense of accountability. A sense so different from the blind curiosity I turn upon a lover.

Or the fuzzy edged lens through which I see my friends.

Each night I run my hands over both our skins. Trace the dips of my own. The lines and ligaments of yours. Places I’ve touched a million times before. Places I return to time and again. Savor when I can and yearn for when I cannot. The way a child wants for a warm blanket. A parent’s arms.

I could chart years over the terrain of your body. Find myself, no matter how long I’ve been missing, in a moment blinked by in the abstract reflection of your eyes.

Time moves with the same fluidity as your hair over your skin over your bone. Over thick lines of vein whittled gracefully to thin. Each one charting challenges I took on. Stages I traversed. Rebellions I staged.

Still you stand on. Aged today in details but reminiscent in whole of this life I cycle through. The person I remain despite it all. The way old maps confirm foundations of a place even after, with the passing of years, new houses have been built and new ground has been struck.

I am determined to explore old frontiers. Traverse new ones. Holding you, as I unknowingly have each time before, as my map.