Never signed up for this

she's in that dreamstate between awake and asleep, twitching, once in a while reaching out to make sure you're there
you watch that little face, soft in the backwash of the streetlights leaking in through the blinds
and you imagine Life thundering down age's tracks at her, with everything it can throw
and something
something squeezes your heart in a fist
love, terrifying in it's coldly uncompromising, absolute, killing, crushing weight, and you can't breathe
or terror, so deep and enmeshed into your being its warmth fills you with a fever, burning
does it matter? is there a difference?
every day, every second, you push this down, lock it up, don't think, turn your face away into books, reports, tv, parks, the next thing to do, place to go
because if you didn't it would destroy you
but sometimes on nights like this you can't
then that one little hand reaches out again
and you will never have a choice about this, ever, this feeling
and she sleeps