like honey and life.

I’m afraid of you unloosing all the hard work I’ve knotted myself up in because
if not for those knots, my hard work is all for naught.
So now I’m all wrapped up, looking for the start of one knot and the end of another, but

There you are - pressing a palm, calloused as mine, against the roundness of my cheek.
There you are, with two hands pressed against my face, beseeching my face to seek your face;
and I try to see your face, but it makes all my blood knots and theology feel misplaced, and then

You whisper to me.
And it’s something just for me, but when you speak,
your breath is like honey, and it washes over me.
I listen to the deep, like I’ve jumped into the sea; you make me abandon me.
I close my eyes and listen to the deep, a voice like the waves, strong and
sweeping right through me; like a child standing waist deep in waves that
are too gentle to knock me off my feet, but I can feel it all around me.
And while I listen to the words, whispered just for me, I feel your hands leave my cheeks.

And so back in all the fear creeps,
That you’ve finally seen me, and all my misplaced theology, all the ties that bind me.
My eyes snap open and I try to believe that
you’re right in front of me, but there’s a lot of feelings raging in me and
my face feels cold after the covering of your hands on me, and
I try to remember what it was like for your voice to sound like honey to me, and then

I can’t see.
You press your hands over my face and my eyelids weigh down heavy, and
there’s more than just your hands covering me.
Dirt and saliva mix up in a holy matrimony and
Mud houses me in sabbath and devotion to you only.
The mud slips down slowly, laid like a foundation across my eyes and
coating my nose, dripping from the cliff of my lips, and
running off the sides of my face to fall on the rest of me and then

You wash over me, this time differently; not like
the waves that enveloped me without knocking me over, but
more like the honey,
Still and slow. And I have to be still and know
that you are still right in front of me and
you’re never leaving.
Slow, like the honey, life pours over me, and
the water washes the mud from me and my eyes are clean and
my lips open and I can breath and
everything pours down off of me and
the holy sabbath and mud matrimony wash over the knots in me.
And so with my face cleaned and my eyes free, I take your invitation and
I seek your face with my face, and then

There are your eyes, like coming home after lost at sea, and
you see me and all the knots fall apart in me.