warm lips chased away the cold of the water. He sat cross-legged on the bottom of the outdoor pool on a freezing night in january; the water was brisk and biting at our extremities and shoots of numbness could be felt up our backs and down between our entwined fingers. his hair floated around him, an orange halo that made his porcelain skin seem frozen and icy, his arms moving in slow circular motions to keep him in place.
He leaned forward, placed his lips on my cheek, and slowly laid short, bubbly kisses in a line to my lips. They were soft and lightly pruned from the time we had spent in the pool. He opened his eyes and smiled. I'm sure he couldn't see me well; his vision must've been blurry, but he didn't care. He exhaled the remaining oxygen in his lungs and sent it upwards in a chaotic cloud of tiny bubbles.
In a way, the bubbles reminded me of our relationship; fleeting, unorganized, filled to the brim with molecules too small to see with the naked eye, but upon closer inspection, realization that our lives would not be possible without them. it was the small details in our lives that were comparable to the bubbles; our brief good morning kisses, small sips of coffee between shy giggles despite the fact that we had already bared our souls to each other.
he moved suddenly, his feet pushing against the ground under him. he was kneeling in front of me. with my hand still encased in his, he thrust up toward the still ascending bubbles above us, chasing them to the surface. trailing me behind him, we drew near the bubbles and the top of the water; at the same time, our future life together, however fleeting it might have been.
