It's easier not to talk.

I can read the definitions
of your fingernails,
the quotes in your eyelashes.
The sentences that line
your tongue, like coffee.

The words in
your movements,
in the crease along
your forehead,
and the way that
you don't meet my eye.
They are loud,
and clear.
Silence that is black and white.

I remember when you
would embrace my body
with your words,
writing them
carefully
along my arms,
across my eyelids
and in between my toes.
I would laugh a little then,
and not say anything.
I couldn't recite those lines
on my back, like a script.

Before you speak, I'd like it if
you'd give me one last piece
of silence.
A pencil, a pen from a café
the eyeliner that you said I never needed.
Write love on the small ridge
between my lips and nose.