It's All Because of You
Distance, fear, love and hope.
I'm not the person I thought I'd be, nor am I the person I hoped I'd be, but that's okay. Living seems to have that effect on people. What I can say for certain is that I am me, and I am here amid my ramshackle life, my eked out existence, my collapsing stack of hopes and dreams and I am feeling good. And it's all because of you.
Your fur feels like silk as you lay atop me. I know this moment is ephemeral, I know even its memory will fade in time, but as long as I breathe I won't let it vanish. I thank any God that will listen, silently, that you are here in my bed, even if you never end up here again. I want to tell you how I love you, and that you make me happy, and that you're the best thing that has ever happened to me, but I say those things too often already, and you're sleeping, so I settle with gently running my paws across your body.
You are beautiful to me. I say 'to me' because, for me, love and attraction are linked, and until I loved you I barely saw you, but ever since I have, I do. And you are beautiful to me. So, so beautiful. Yes, yes, your cute bushy tail, your cream and chocolate coat, those gleaming gray eyes that open oh so wide when you're excited, the pretty little markings on your left shoulder, that soft, shapely rear. But, no, that's not all. It's your love handles too, and that bit of pudge you call so unflattering, and it's your lazy eye, and the chipped tooth, it's that thing you keep between your legs that you're all too hasty to label 'below average'. The insinuation makes me laugh. You could never be 'below average' anything. Anyway, it's all of that, it's all of you that makes you beautiful.
You're asleep in my arms, resting on the presupposition that I was going to sleep too, but here I am, wide awake, observing the rise and fall of your chest, listening to that soft snore, and falling in love with you ever more. I could cry, but I wouldn't dare risk waking you. It feels surreal to me that you're here, that you've been here three full weeks and seemed even to have a good time, that I haven't driven you away, that you tell me you love me when I tell you I love you, sometimes even before. It feels surreal to me that after those months closing in on years talking and falling and ruminating, circling the point, you caught a plane ride that ate a whole day, and you're here, and I can hold you, that it actually happened. It feels surreal to me that you're flying back tomorrow evening.
The joy I have felt these past weeks has surpassed any in my life by an order of extreme magnitude. I know that when you go, things will be different. I will return to my daily mundanities; the insufferable ordinariness of eat, work, sleep, repeat. I know that when you go, you may never come back. This has been wonderful, and as much as I like to worry and to be insecure, I know you wouldn't argue with that, but it was expensive, and it was arduous, and when it's over we'll be as distant as we ever were again, and these have always been the reasons we put this off so long. You may as well live a world away. What right have I to fall in love with you? What right have we to waste our lives on this fantasy? But this glows like nothing the world has ever known, and I refuse to believe it is wrong. But not being wrong doesn't mean it is right.
I could cry, but I can't bear to wake you. Instead I study your body and memorize your every nook. I absorb the image of you, the weight of you on me, the sound of your breathing, your scent. It's all of you that I love, and all of you that I will remember and treasure evermore no matter what happens tomorrow, no matter where I am in a month or a year, no matter if I'm ashes in the wind. I could cry, but I won't. I could cry, but I badly don't want to. I could cry, but...
I keep it quiet, barely making a sound as I feel the tears clump the fur of my cheeks. It's only an involuntary, shuddering exhalation that gives me away. You stir and you make a sound. And I wipe my damp face with the back of my arm and I force myself into a more reasonable state and you mutter something that I don't register and I pull in a breath, and I push it out, and I see you again, your half lidded eyes staring up at me.
"What was that?" I ask in a whisper.
You make another sleepy sound and bat my side with your tail.
"I said, I love you," you murmur. And you mean it completely. So do I when I say it back. You rub your eyes, then open them a little wider, making a complaining hum. "Were you crying?"
"I'm sorry," I say.
You're silent for a while.
Then: "I'm not going to disappear when I go home, you know? You're not getting rid of me that easily. I'll still be in your life, I'll still love you."
"I know." I'm choking up again.
"I know you want this to work," you say. I can only nod. "And so do I. So we're gonna try and make it work, aren't we?" I can only nod, and squeeze you, and hope that somehow that squeeze can convey all of the love I feel for you at once, as impossible as it is. It would crush you. "So that's that," you say, finally, and close your eyes, and your breathing slows, and gradually morphs into a continuation of the same soft snore from before.
I want to stay up and watch your chest rise and fall all night. I want to obsess over the 'try' part of your sweet sentiment. I want to catastrophize and prophesy and run probability projections. I want to know exactly how long it will be until we give up on this, because so much of me believes it is unavoidable. But not all of me believes that. All of me is in agreement on one thing though: we're gonna try to make this work.
My eyelids droop, and I think on how your fur feels like silk, and I let myself believe this won't be the last night I get to hold you in my arms. I find a smile that won't leave my face, and it's all because of you.