I saw you, peeking like a mouse through the key-hole. There was Love, sitting open and empty handed on the other side with an ear pressed against the pane, trying to decipher a heart-beat out of something so small within such a large room. Like a mouse, paralyzed with fear…sitting as one would before the snake, all the while knowing its death will be the next second…or the next…inevitable. No movement…still as ever, not by effort but by habit…by instinct. Eyes flickered this way and that, bulged, then tried to hide behind veils of skin which would not shield them. This was fate…this was destiny. The key-hole was that on an ogre’s door, large enough for you to crawl through, had you wanted to. I dangled rope through that crevice, towards you, woven of taunting previews of all I wished I could show you. You couldn’t extend, yet still could not move further away from that through-way. There had to be nothing but a wall between us. We had to be as close as you believed possible, but still apart. The door between us may well have never existed anywhere but in your mind. We pressed our hands firm against it, knowing the other was feeling at the opposite side…and mindlessly, we tried to trace each others heartbeats in the grain of unfinished wood. The wood absorbed your scent, breathed it through to my side and exhaled. You made love to me with caresses of the air which carried your breath over my skin, with the tapping of fingertips against the door, searching for but unable to truly come to me. All I had to embrace was a shadow from where I did not know. At least fear ceased its hold on you. Instead of paralyzed, you were tempted. You held my rope until I began to pull. Finally, I left it there as a trail. You could follow it, crawl through the crevice to me, if ever you felt ready.

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