To a Beloved, with time running out

You lie there, casting back your sideways smile and doing what you do best; I can't help but laugh.
 

I forget my tears as I feel your warmth against me, your body rising and falling as you breathe-breathe-breathe-breathe. Life is in you, and I can feel it. I know it's there. But what happens that sudden day that it is not?

My tears rise again, as I look at you shifting your weight, now resting on your chest. We don't sense the days in the same way, and you don't know, as I do, that we are on the short end of our time together.

Your breath has slowed, now calm and steady, its rhythm marked by each drop that falls. You would will me to forget my human-ness if you could. You would have me join you in the spirit of wildness, one devoid of calendars and clocks, one defined by its animality.

I would do well to follow you. You are a beautiful shape with an equally beautiful heart, one that seems to shine from your still-smiling eyes. I don't understand you, not as I should. There's a bounty of rascally goodness, unpolished purity, and mischievous love, all bound up within you, and yet it is not tied down. Whether you intend to or not, you pour yourself out, giving life in ways you know not how.

For that, for who you are, for bearing with me in my darkest hours, for bringing light that always dispels the shadows--for you, I am forever grateful.