Magnesium

You were in nestled in, faded navy blue sweatpants thin with wear around the ankles like maybe they were too long and you had walked on them unconsciously for years. You were perched (there is no other way to describe the way that your body clenched and balanced itself on the armrest of the couch where my head has laid other times, my eyes dazed and staring up at you as you pull your glasses off, a familiar gesture that I’ve seen so many times, and I kept thinking how I like the different ways you look with your glasses on and off, the parts of you that come out in each moment and the span of seconds between, the transition when you reach your hand up, sometimes slowly, sometimes frantically, sometimes pushing them atop of your head, sometimes tugging them from your face and setting them aside on the coffee table or letting them fall into the cracks of the couch or rest on your bedside table against the wolf lamp that does not give off enough light for you to capture a picture of the wetness surrounding your body when we are up far too late talking and fucking over distance and language.) Anyway.

You were perched on the armrest of that unfamiliarly-familiar couch, explaining why we crave chocolate differently, how it stimulates and calms the nervous system simultaneously, talking about depletion of minerals and vitamins from the soil, talking about magnesium. And your eyes lit up like an ember flared from somewhere deep within, a burst of fire and passion that you could not contain within your body any longer. You spoke extravagantly, gracefully. You spoke in awe of our bodies and the earth, joined them in words and exuberant, unfettered excitement. I smiled. I couldn’t help it; your enthusiasm was contagious and crashed across my cells, waves breaking and leaving the ocean spray on the tip of my tongue. I know so little about the things that our bodies need, know next-to-nothing about magnesium (maybe, on the periodic table, magnesium is Ma? I was never good at chemistry) and I yet I found myself wanting to drink the words like liquid sunlight pouring through your window at 4 pm, swallow these small moments of linguistic alchemy and pull the sustenance from your language. But language is low in magnesium too, I’m sure (but I wonder, I wonder what is in your words that stimulates and calms my nervous system, like chocolate for my tired, steady spirit). I want to stay, quietly curled in my own self-contained ball on the chair in your living room, and watch you talk, watch you move, one arm curled around your knees while the other follows the graceful arc of your hand punctuating language with volant movement, your shoulders straining, your body pulsing like a small sun exists within your chest. I want to watch the words tumble from your mouth like rocks, tangible and beautiful and swirling around you, hovering and dissipating like stardust sinking into my lungs when I breathe for the first time since I realized I have been holding my breath, entranced.