As days turned to years, I grew to know your body better than my own: I can recognize the sweet tremble of your breath as it leaves your lips, full and heavy. I can recite all the freckles on your arms, and trace the pattern of your soft, pale skin. But with this knowledge comes no guarantee, no promise of permanence. Death makes sure of that.

And so this desperate fumbling, this lust and passion we first collapsed into-- although it has never left us, and we have never fallen into the timid and quiet acts of love and never will-- is still there, it is different. No longer do we struggle to understand each other, or to probe the newness with quick and eager hands. We have it all memorized and we revel and delight in it.

Our hunger comes from the violent fear that, one day, we will be lost to one another, that our mouths will seek and not find. With each harried and rough kiss, I cling to you just a little longer. Your frantic hands squeeze and lock my flesh. We try to stop the world from spinning-- because these sacred moments that are already too fast and too fleeting always get stolen. But time doesn't stop. And our embrace has all the energy, passion and bliss of a dying star.