Betwixt and Between

Betwixt is neither here nor there.  It is purgatory.  It is the space between.  Betwixt your sweltering sheets, I know not if we are here in this moment or somehow somewhere else.  We have somehow slipped between the defined and the meaningless, and I am unsure of how we landed somewhere so nebulous and disjointed.  The space between us is so far apart yet I lie close enough to extend my hand and trace the curve of your brow.  The shape used to be so familiar, but the recent furrows make it something I no longer recognize.  Behind closed eyes hide clouded windows that bar me access from what was once the only place I needed to look to know all of you.  Behind closed lips waits nothing, for nothing is what they now give me across the dinner table or in the hall.  Half closed hands caress the sheets more tenderly than they do me.  Somewhere between now and then, a wayward breeze did blow.

Falling back through flickering memories in time, I can see us laying cheek to check and walking arm in arm.  Harmonious steps lead us down the same path on the journey from I to us.  What is betwixt us now?   Neither here nor there.  My security slips away as your freedom from what bonds you to us dissolves.  Dissolves like baseless fabric of our days gone by.  All that was once betwixt us now covered with a brume; mistier than eyes wide shut.

Once so secure in my footing, I was sure, steady.  I walked bravely into the world, knowing you were steady at my side, had my back, and together moving forward.  Now I know not where I can place my next step.  Once aplomb,  now uncertainty wracks me.  Once whole, now broken into one.  Between the me of we and the I now foisted upon me, I dare not move.  Every step forward is one away from you.  Further into vagueness we slip, neither wholly one thing or another.  Still your direction is unmistakable.

On the edge of sleep, betwixt awake and asleep.  Betwixt my heart and the rational, between me and you; here I lie alone by your side.  I can feel you breathing; the air we share between us will soon dissipate and be lost among all the rest.  We are undefined, you are undecided, and I am on the wrong side of right.  Soon, it will be very soon, that all that is betwixt and between us will slip into that space between.  Soon all that is us will be lost among all the rest.