Where the Heart Is

Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky. 

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

The air wraps around my skin in a heavy, smothering embrace. I feel myself dissolving into the atmosphere – the sluggish humidity absorbing my flesh effortlessly. I float free and slow through the streets of this little town, invisible.

All that tethers me to reality is you.

Even from a distance, you have a hold on me. A tiny beep from my phone, and all of my disparate parts are re-collected in you. Everything that i am is held within everything that you are – from your virtual words on my screen to the realness of you, many miles away.

If not for you, i would become lost in the world, swirling into an oblivion of color and sound, melting into nature. But you are my rock. However far my imagination may take me, you always call me home again.

They say that home is where the heart is. I find my home within every word you speak, every glance that comes my way, every touch. I am at home in the curve of your arm, in the curve of your mouth, in your curving laughter. I am at home in your thoughts, in your quirks, in the miles between us. I am at home in your heart.

You say that your heart is mine. This, then, is love: i have learned to be at home in you, and in so doing, i have found myself at home in me.