Sometimes I think you want me to touch you...
How can I when you build the great wall around you?
In your eyes I saw a future together...
You just look away in the distance...

You're right next to me...
I think that you can hear me...
Funny how the distance learns to grow...
I can feel the distance,
I can feel the distance,
I can feel the distance getting close...

-from 'China' by Tori Amos


How many times...

I have watched you sleep.

How many times...

I have listened to you breathe in the darkness.

How many times...

You were so close. So close, so many times.

I remember the nights when you lay beside me, so close, and the sweet temptation to reach out and touch your face, your face fairer even in sleep than in waking. I remember the silent torture when I realized I could not, the voiceless pain when I realized I dared not.

So many times...

When the icy blade cut my heart in two, so many times, as my hand froze, only inches away from your skin. Yet there was an eternity between us, the black chasm of doom.

So many times...

When I turned to my dreams to find what reality denied me. When I found, time after time, how bitter dreams can be, how cruel these moments of false happiness.

How cruel the imagined kisses, how cold the caress I desired so, how lifeless the pretended passion, how incomplete the forced fulfilment.

So close, your body, unbearably close.

Your lips-- stolen kisses in the darkness. Your eyes-- mirrors of unspoken desire. Your body-- mine in fevered passion.

So distant, your heart, agonizingly distant.

How many times...

You have held me.

How many times...

You have whispered my name in your dreams.

How many times...

Always, always have you been so close. Close even when you were so far away and every second I missed the familiarity of your beloved voice speaking my name, your soft breath in the darkness, your heartbeat telling me I'm alive.

So many times...

I have read love immeasurable in your eyes. Love that frightened me. And yet... was not this love what I desired most?

So many times...

The step from dream to reality was so very short. And yet... did I not stumble time after time?

Kiss me goodbye, brother. But deny me not the dreams of your body on mine in desperate passion, deny me not my twisted, bitter fulfilment, deny me not my foolish hope for in your eyes it burns also.

Kiss me, brother, in silent farewell before you leave. Taste my breath for it is yours also.

And the urge to draw you close was so terribly strong, my dream come true just a breath away... so close. But there is no mercy, no salvation for me.

Kiss me, brother mine, and by this kiss remember me. Remember. Always.

I remember the day you left and I remember the pain as my heart was torn apart for half of it followed you into the shadows. The black chasm of doom. And I shivered as I stood and watched the bridges burning.

I remember your voice, so full of tenderness, so full of love.

'Promise me... promise me that you will be happy...'

And I promised, brother mine, but I knew that this was the first time I had lied to you for this promise I cannot keep, have broken it already, I am breaking it anew day after day for there can be no happiness for me, no happiness without you.

I remember the shadow of regret trembling in your voice, the breath of regret trembling on your lips.

Kiss me goodbye, brother mine. The last kiss, and the first also. But the promise is gone. And looming behind you is the cold shadow of distance, waiting, waiting for us.

And as the sky turned grey I hid my face and cried in silence for I knew that you were not coming back.

How many times...

I have dreamt of you.

How many times...

I woke, alone in the darkness, your name a silent cry on my lips.

So many times...

When I trembled from the cold tears running down my face that told me that what hurt most was the closeness in our distance.