Sehnsucht

(noun.) a high degree of intense, recurring, and often painful desire for something, particularly if there's no hope to attain the desired or when its attainment is uncertain, still far away.

I have never seen you, 

but the outline of you dances

behind my eyelids each night while I sleep, 

taunting and forever spinning out of reach

just when I think that I have finally caught up.

It sparks an ache in my chest;

iron fists tightening around my heart, 

straining deeper and deeper into me

until my skin is left humming with the want 

of wandering, of following the calling in my soul

that will lead to me what is already so familiar.

I have not touched you, 

but there have been times, in the quiet moments

between sleeping and waking, 

when I believe that I can feel you.

Your hands are soft and gentle;

the ghost of a touch that I have yet to know.

You have never spoken,

but there have been times, in the still moments

between dusk and dawn,

when I believe that I can hear you.

Your warm breath is against my ear, 

and you whisper to me

in a voice that I recognize only from dreams.

I can feel you move across my skin,

and the phantom ache persists,

settling low in my core, clenching and unfurling

until I am drowning in welcome agony.

I ache to smell the sweetness of your air,

and to hear the sound of you, like a holy song.

I ache to taste you on my tongue,

and to learn the lines of you

until they are branded, forever burning, on my mind;

until I could know them even blind.

I ache to see you haloed in starlight, 

with the sun in your eyes.

I ache to feel your warmth 

seeping into every inch of my bones, 

thawing me from the inside out and 

lighting a fire within me 

that rages wildly and will not burn out.