A Bittersweet Indulgence

Our bod­ies burn like flames in an oven, so we kick off the cov­ers. I slip my arm around her waist and press her body close to mine. She holds my hand to her chest, fin­gers wrapped around fin­gers, legs wrapped around legs.

The morn­ing light comes in blue and soft and sub­tle through the win­dow, and the stars begin to fade.

I want to hold her like this under a tree in the sum­mer and pass the time in her com­pa­ny, alive to every moment we’re togeth­er. I want to hold her like this when the cars and streets are buried under snow out­side, so we may tru­ly know what it is to be warm and com­fort­able. I want to run my fin­ger along the soft­ness of her face, so I may learn every land­mark and fea­ture, and nev­er for­get. I want to read to her my favourite books on lazy Sunday after­noons, so I can take her to where they’ve tak­en me. I want to feel her breath against my skin, the breath that gives her life, and me joy. I want to wake up to find she’s not away in anoth­er bed, but next to me, lost in slum­ber, for there can be no oth­er such sim­ple hap­pi­ness.

This is where I’m per­fect­ly con­tent, lost in a moment when time has stopped and noth­ing else mat­ters.

But I know it won’t last for­ev­er. She’ll soon be gone. I won’t be the one to do these things with her, the one to love her the way she was meant to be loved, the one to love her as deeply as she deserves. There’s no use in think­ing about it now.

I’ve fall­en for this muse in my arms, totale­ment, ten­drement, trag­ique­ment.

The one who inspires me to cre­ate won­der­ful things, to make beau­ty as I see it in her, so that oth­ers may share in this feel­ing. If I had a mil­lion words to describe her grace, it still would­n’t be enough.

I could be sad, but I’d rather be hap­py instead.

So as the sun begins to rise, I indulge myself a lit­tle longer, and hold her clos­er before drift­ing off to sleep.

13 comments

  1. I’m curi­ous to know who inspires you so.…

    You describe things so beau­ti­ful­ly that I feel like I can reach out and touch them.

  2. It’s a secret. :) I’d rather peo­ple not know because it brings more of a mys­ti­fy­ing, uni­ver­sal qual­i­ty where peo­ple can apply their own ideas (much like Henry’s James’ novel­la The Turn Of The Screw) to my con­cept of a muse.

    And I would­n’t be able to describe things in such a way if I was­n’t so inspired.

  3. Just my luck! I’m envi­ous! I can only imag­ine what it would feel like to be so impor­tant to some­one.

  4. This is beau­ti­ful. You have a way with words. I love when some­thing is so well writ­ten that the rest of the world just melts away till all thats left is the raw emo­tion that words can often ignite.

  5. I love the sex/relationship/yearning entries.

    I hope that who­ev­er this muse is knows that she is loved and appre­ci­at­ed and inspir­ing this kind of ener­gy.

    Ugh, I need to inspire some­one toute suite!

    thank you…your words envel­op the emo­tions like silk.…

  6. @The Invisible Girl — Thank you. The one sub­ject I tend to write about most often is emo­tions, so to find out that they come through my words brings me tremen­dous sat­is­fac­tion.

    @Zaira — I’m glad you enjoy these entries, per­haps as much as I enjoy writ­ing them. I think this muse knows, but per­haps does­n’t ful­ly under­stand yet how spe­cial she is.

    If only we could all be so sig­nif­i­cant and affect­ing.

  7. This is the rea­son why I don’t write emo­tion­al posts. Can’t com­pare.

  8. You are sig­nif­i­cant and affect­ing to me.….and to many oth­ers I’m sure.

  9. @Causalien — I used to give up when­ev­er I saw a breath­tak­ing pho­to­graph, heard a vir­tu­oso piano play­er, or expe­ri­enced any oth­er lev­el of art I knew I would nev­er be able to achieve.

    Now, I try to let it inspire, not dis­cour­age, me. I’ve learned that I don’t have to be the best at some­thing to feel sat­is­fied. It will nev­er get me as far as some, but at least I’ll be hap­py doing it.

    @Lucy — Your com­ment means a great deal to me. I feel like know­ing this brings a jus­ti­fi­ca­tion to my exis­tence.

  10. The real achiev­ers are usu­al­ly the ones who sim­ply get sat­is­fac­tion out of what they do, not the ones who thrive to achieve.

  11. You’re exact­ly right. They each win in their own way.

  12. I don’t know how I did­n’t bump into this entry soon­er.… it is .… total­ly arrest­ing.

    Once a long time ago, a high school cre­ative writ­ing teacher of mine wrote in my year­book under my pic­ture:

    Ah, well. Perhaps in anoth­er life.”

    It was years before I looked at it and real­ized what he’d meant, and that I meant some­thing large to him.

    That is what I would put under your pic­ture now.

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