We loved each other more when we couldn’t sleep, lying next to each other, for the claustrophobia of winter, and unspeakable, inaction-able desire and distance.

But it also felt like we forgave each other more in the intense heat of that moment for future sleepless nights, many flights and frights, and all the other things that were coming…

It was under those teeming covers that a silent deal was struck and a bud of hope emerged.

How can heat act like water on such a nascent thing?

A thing we wanted to disallow ourselves for all those pent-up fears and histories.

Yet, there it was – real, burning, iridescent: A thing.

Without name, but not without purpose. The beginning.