Outside the Box

Please don't mind me

Please don't mind if look at you a little bit longer

If I stare at how your presence brushes the space around you,
How your hand rests on the table, how you touch the surfaces of the world.

Please don't mind how I observe you as you turn to smile at a stranger
and turn back to smile at me even more brightly.

I have longed for your physical being, the real you, the one of flesh and
bones and breath and scent.

I have been so curious after years of delving into your mind, your thoughts,
our weekly conversations about everything
except what is really you and really me.

So don't mind me if my fingertips stretch to caress your dimples,
if I lean in and linger on the details of our live interactions.

Finally live, finally real.

Finally in the same city, the same room, the same space.

Finally I can unfold my truth and reveal my hidden corners.

The little boxes of the past have framed us long enough.

Now is a different time and moment, when our exchange of thoughts is free
to expand into other types of sharing.

Please don't mind me as I continue to be intrigued by what you say
but now I find my skin and pulse reacting to the real you of flesh and blood.

The one with whom I finally dare to explore the expanse of our common place
and whose I eyes I read more clearly
defining their color and expression,
whose presence extends around me in a moment that is more now
than it has ever been before.