COMPARE

We’d been seeing each other for over three months, and we were circling. Trying to decide if what we had was worth continuing. Whether this person’s face was the one we’d want to watch change, whether this person’s shoulder was the one we wanted touching ours every night as we slept. How tall are you, you asked me, in centimetres? Which way do you vote, I asked you, really, when you get into the booth? Could you love a sick child? Can you hold a note? Which films did you cry in? How much do you read? Health issues? Medications? Perversions? We stayed up all night, coring out each other’s personalities, digging for truths we’d never actually need to know until a time when it wouldn’t matter anyway. We fell asleep, together, shoulders touching, bodies rising to fall.