I’m watching you sleep, golden-skinned among a tangle of white linen sheets.

That’s my favorite background for you, in a bed of white, muscle and strength stretched out, dark hair a contrast to the pillows you’ve shoved to the side, your face a peaceful poem.

I wonder if you know how many mornings I stare at you like this, eyes lingering on the curve of your exquisite ass, the broad of your back, the curve of your biceps.

I wonder if you know that hearing your soft breathing is a tonic for my soul.

I wonder if you know that my heart skips a beat when I think that one day I’ll open my eyes and you won’t be here.

It makes me want to hold you close and never let you go, to lock you up in a tower far away and throw away the key.

It makes me want to never wake you, so that this vision will somehow last for eternity.

Twenty-one Valentines’ and a day—time has flown on the wings of my dreams and still I never have enough of you.

You awoke a hunger that will never be sated. You awoke a love that has no reason or ending.

I want to cheat death, offer anything in return, to never have to see your place beside me empty.

I’m watching you sleep. I let my fingers trail along your skin and smile as you move a little closer, mumbling something that I cannot discern—but from twenty-one Valentines’ and a day, I know that you never tire of my touch.

Not just today, but every day—this is the gift that you shower me with. I can trust in your devotion, in the way you’ll turn towards me and gather me up into the warmth of your eyes.

For twenty-one Valentines’ and a day, my breath has caught on that first look into your soul.

For twenty-one Valentines’ and a day, your eyes have smiled as they took their first glimpse of me.

You’ve gotten used to the way I’m still shy around you when morning breaks.

Because you’re still so new. You’re still a mystery that I don’t wish to understand.

I’m watching you sleep, light a promising requiem, our room a blanket for our love.

I love you enough to let you go but I hope that life will not ask such things of me; I hope that next Valentine’s Day, you will still be here, naked—all your male prowess at my command.

You allow me my fantasies; you ask nothing but that I remain a safe harbor for your heart and body and soul.

I’m not always that thing, and you’re not always mine, we’ve had battles, we have clawed at each other, we have bite marks that left scars and wounds that were slow to heal…

And yet, for twenty-one Valentines’ and a day, we have known that the fire we are consumed with will never destroy us.

I can’t own you, I know that. I can’t keep you any longer than the days fate allows us. I can’t change you nor do I want to, I can’t ask you to give me things you don’t possess.

You can’t mold me nor control me; you can’t know that I won’t one day break your heart.

But as your heat touches mine and your smile breaks with dawn, I know that twenty-one Valentines’ are like seconds on a clock, that each day after this will be no less divine, that your hands in my hair will still awaken blatant desire.

If you’re to sin, sin with me.

If you’re to die, die in my arms.

If you’re to leave, take me with you.

If you’re to drown, let me be the lake.

If you’re for a season, may I be your autumn?

I need, I want…

For twenty-one Valentines’…and all my days.

 

 

 

 

Author: Monika Carless

Editor: Renée Picard

Image: malomalverde at Flickr