What If?

What if we weren’t the responsible ones, for a change?

What if we weren’t the ones who let someone else screw up and

Kept on doing the right things?

What if we … could just run away for a while—just for a while—

To some anonymous, peaceful place where email was banned, the phone

Didn’t ring, the air was warm and we were all alone for an afternoon?

Where my heart didn’t ache,

Where there weren’t the old problems and worries,

Where we could be carefree children again, with no grownup cares?

What if the passage of time had not stolen things from us,

What would it be like to melt into each other, to

Give the comfort we each so desperately need?

What would it be like to forget, for a few hours,

The problems, the people, the obligations, the doubts, the fears…

Where caresses last for hours, if we want them to,

And knowing nothing was too sad, or frightening or too hard to share?

What would it be like to simply have fun, to do things, goof off?

What would it be like to act as though this were normal,

Instead of something rare and scary?

What would it be like to steal some time,

Where the most natural of paths leads to soft words, whispered in the night:

And shouts from the bottom of desire, pleas for more, faces buried in flesh and cries and tears;

Hidden things shared, precious, lonely secrets held inside too long

Laid out in the light, trembling, but embraced with a healing grace.

What would it be like,

To be revealed in body and mind— and forgiven,

Each standing innocent before the other;

To taste the kisses, follow the flow, feel your arms around my neck,

Feel your body engulf mine, become one,

Embracing the passion that

Would affirm a new-yet-ancient joy,

Something powerful and permanent in the world,

The first sunrise on the first morning over the first mountain?

What would it be like, after all, to love,

long and slow; soft and urgent; hard and fast—whatever we desired—

And then, at the end of it all, with whispers and cries,

Our limbs entwined and fitted as they were made to be,

To slip into dreamless sleep?

What would it be like, do you suppose,

if all pretenses were gone,

All fears laid to rest, all worries answered;

The deepest losses felt, blessed and buried;

Bleeding souls, wounds, and the daily bruises,

From years ago—and yesterday—soothed,

bathed in acceptance and compassion, and healed, at long last?

What would it mean to be secure in the feeling

that all of the rest of the world,

all of the care and worries—all disappointments and anger and pain and regret —

were gone, like a summer storm on the mountain,

That would sweep it all aside like a sudden breath of God through the wildwood,

In that sweet and peaceful and distant place?

What would it be like, if, someday,

We sat side by side in the morning on a beach somewhere,

And looked out over the waves and saw only the future, instead of the past?