What Passes For Peace

 

We could take our time, hold on to it and keep it safe here, far from the rest of the world. We could take our time and hide it here under these blankets where we huddle together against the cold world that storms against our windows.

We have tried walking those human streets where empty-eyed bodies jostle and throng, each searching for what those eyes cannot see. We have taken ourselves out into the promise-haunted night seeking someone who will recognise us across some crowded room and come take us by the hand away from here.

Here, now and together, we have found at least some short time away from all that. We have found what passes for peace in these stormy times, a still centre at the eye of our lives. A place where we can feel the touch of skin under our searching hands. We have arrived at a place where we can feel the beating of another heart in the silence that we crave.

All of this though will only last for a while, we know that it will be over as soon as the storm clears and we can leave the safety of these sheets, throwing them back as though discarding the memories of this time and stepping back out into separate lives once more, each of us closing ourselves down ready to face the faceless crowds as we wander lonely back to our own thin lives.