The Touch Language

(image credit here)

I never understood
what it meant
to be this close
to another human being
Before this,
before us,
I only read
of fairy tale beginnings
and beautiful endings
I have yet to learn
the secrets of
the language of skin to skin
Of the creases and calluses
of hesitant hellos
and fingerprint friendships

I don't know
what became
our beginning of everything
but I know it included
singing in the rain
without an umbrella
and twenty-inch pizzas
Doodles behind notebooks
and guitar chords
Swept up hair
and drunken
must-be confessions
and maybe a sliver of
confusion(?) and denial(?)
before
we became
this

This bundle of blushing
bumbling idiots
With a million undiscovered nerve endings
on every inch of skin
from the shoulders when we leant into each other
to our fingers
as we held on and wondered
how deliciously different
this feels
This
whatever it is

Silence
was our loudest answer
for we are born
in the quiet of each other
amidst the noise
of a thousand people
bustling with their own brands
of hellos and goodbyes
while here we stand
meeting each other

Hand to hand
finger splayed against finger
palms together
with signals from every known nerve ending
meeting

Hello
Hello