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.

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.