Your body is a skeletal frame of roots reinforced with silence and compassion. When your lips part I can see the wings inside of you and when you smile at me I feel warm, like a fire slicing through the stillness of December. When your hand touches my skin it burns for days afterwards, and I grab at my neck searching for red marks where your fingertips had landed. When you're on top of me I see branches sprouting from your temples and they show possibilities that I know you can't yet see. Your arms are quiet tree trunks, planted on my hips, and as they lift me up I wonder in silence why you don't creak under the weight of the thoughts I hold for you. My face turns hot as your fingers untangle my vines and comb through my hair and suddenly I'm gasping for you, for something I'm not sure of. Words spill out of you and I hide my face in your dark tumbling sheets so that I can show as many teeth as I'd like.