Soft slipping into the cool night fingers
moon tendrils tasting our flesh and chilling
these soul beasts, trapped in cages of bone.

We listen in the dark for morning sounds
our backs pressed close, our palms flat against the earth
drinking in the lingering warmth of yesterday's sun.

It is the silence and these racing thoughts,
I imagine myself standing and walking around the world
just to find you here, still
with your sunken eyes and a sullen stare.

I breathe slowly, nervous fingertips unsettling the loose soil.

Your voice rips through the violet-blue air
disrupting the breeze and the insidious swaying of decaying leaves.
You are asking if this is a place that I could die.
I tell you not to think about it anymore -
that we'll only need a small death, tonight.

A few hours of sleep and we will survive.