v u l v a l i c i o u s Biding Time 2012-06-01 // 7:14 p.m. You can take me now, I'm ready. I have been reading your diary, studying the words between the lines. Getting to know the way you trace your finger along the page as you read, re-read, edit, re-read everything you write. I have fingered the smudges left on the screen and memorized the whirling patterns in your prints. I know you, I know this. I have been studying up, yes. Book after book, all of them ones that you have read, shelved, re-read, dog-eared. This is an essay for you, in pieces and parts. Poems and paragraphs and stories about you, always about you. Using the first person was a ruse. I have been biding my time, writing when you write; breathing when you breathe. Measuring out my life in days, months, years, as long as it takes. Waiting. And I will be yours. Now, today. Tomorrow if we must. You open your palms to me. Line upon line, layered. Words written a week ago in ink, reminders and jumping off points. You shrug your shoulders and let me go. back-forth