I see you
“I’ve been thinking about you,” I say.
“Me,” you say, the corners of your lips widening. A slow delicious smile. ”What about me?”
“Your eyes.”
I inch closer. You let me. Your chest rises against mine, falls to my breath.
“Your eyes,” I say again, “the freckles and sparkles, sometimes I think that if I stare too long, I’ll lose myself.”
Your breath deepens. I feel it on my chin, hot. Eyelashes close softly. Eyelashes open. I look at you, your pupils dilated big and open, and suddenly I’m swirling in colors so soft and tender – hazel, brown, green - and then I’m in your iris, it flashing bright and sounding a thump thump and I’m swimming, my hands parting the optic fluids, warm and silky, and into the long tunnel of your optic nerve. It spirals like the barrel of a rifle, thunderclouds flashing and booming across neurons, kapow! kabam! – what do you see? What message rushes to your brain? – and curiosity gets the better of me as I swim to the axon of the neuron closest to me, a mass of swirling electricity flashing across the body and tendrils in a sea of dark green. The cell wall parts as I touch it, smooth against my skin as I enter, and closes behind me.
I float past enzymes doing their coupling dance. A loose Oxygen atom zings past me. I wave at it, giggle, and continue towards the center. The nuclear membrane folds around me, tumbling me round and round and when it lets go, I’m inside staring at gigantic chromosomes criss-crossing each other like skyscrapers in a mad mad world. I kick with my heels, gain momentum, shoot inside one, growing smaller and smaller until I see the beautiful double-helix and I stop in awe.
Everything you could be, all that you are, your potential, all encoded in spiraling staircases of molecules. I want to kiss each and every one. Which one expresses itself into your hair? Which one into your laugh?
I float, growing smaller and smaller, feeling myself slowly drawn into your dna, the hydrogen bonds tickling my skin, making the hair on my arms rise, and then woosh, I’m moving fast, speeding past carbon atoms, still growing smaller and smaller, passing oxygen atoms, Van der Waals forces zinging me around like a pinball, and I’m tumbling tumbling falling falling, passing through thick fogs of electrons, feeling the charged hum as they buzz by me, and through black empty space until I see neutrons and protons, glowing purple and violet as they spiral around each other in lazy concentric circles and I slow, growing smaller. Photons whiz by me, large blue balls, and I wait until one is near me and jump on.
“Whee,” I shout out as the photon lazily curves through space, a bright light far away growing larger and larger. Neutrinos jump in and out of dimensions around us, little sparkles, some speeding past the photons, going backwards in time. The light grows close, a spiraling galaxy, and I hear a voice, making me almost fall off the photon. I grasp onto it tightly and turn to see God riding a photon to my left.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he asks again.
God really does have a long flowing beard, robes, the works. He catches me staring at his sandles.
“Got ‘em at Nordstorms,” he says.
I nod idiotically. He grins, starts to speed towards the light, leaving me behind.
“Wait,” I shout. ”Wait.”
He slows until I’m alongside. We both ride in silence.
“Go ahead,” he says gently. ”Ask.”
I look at him, the galaxy unfurling in front of us. Stars everywhere.
“What’s the point,” I say. ”Of everything. What’s the point?”
He smiles. Neutrinos pop around us, fizzle.
“You are,” he says finally. ”You are the point.”
Then he kicks the side of his photon like a bull and speeds off. I watch him turn into a shooting star until it arcs into the galaxy in an explosion of light and then I’m tumbling backwards, off my photon, falling and falling, neutrons and protons growing larger and larger, then the humming fog of electrons flipping me around, and then your dna, your chromosomes, through the nuclear membrane, the cytoplasm, the cell wall, thunderstorms of sodium and potassium ions, and I’m out of the cell, spinning through your optic nerve, your iris, your pupil, and back to you, your breath warm on my face.
“I like how you do that,” you say.
“Do what?”
“The way you look at me.” You bite your lip. ”I feel like you can really see me.”
I smile, hold you tight. We close our eyes.
