SWORDFERN
Rooted, I used to think.

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Up & Down - Monday, Apr. 19, 2021
Beach Avenue - Friday, Apr. 16, 2021
Counting on Forever - Tuesday, Apr. 13, 2021
Moving In Together - Friday, Mar. 26, 2021
Cut Block - Thursday, Mar. 18, 2021


Monday, Mar. 01, 2021 @ 11:10 am
Spring



I wake in his bed, on my back, my arms above my head and tucked under my pillow. The openness across my chest. My breath deep and heavy in my belly. The sun rising earlier now, and I pull the curtain away to see the sunrise streaked pink across the assortment of clouds that are scattered across the sky.

The birds in the trees outside, noisy and tropical.

I dreamed of being in Mexico, walking the streets of a cobblestone beach town at night. A strong, hot wind pressing against me. I am searching for a beach bar, for a cold beer, and it’s like walking into the wind on the deck at the front of a ferry. I walk between two buildings, down a sandy alley that leads towards the beach. I come across a man. Hi, he says. Hi, I say. Somehow I know that he has fallen in love at first sight. He gently takes my wrist and examines me carefully, his eyes wide in wonder and desire. I lean against the side of a building, the smooth concrete wall painted a pale coral pink warm on my back. He breathes me in, at my neck, and then he kisses me so carefully and my heart beats and I feel so safe and precious and he is so kind and tender and I want more of this. More of him. More.

Bare feet and hot sand. The palms rustling above. The roll of the ocean beyond.

***

One Sunday evening, instead of going home to prepare for the week, I stay at his place. I stay curled in the corner of his couch reading a book. At a certain time in the evening, he gets up and starts doing things.

He changes into shorts and rolls out his yoga mat and spends ten minutes stretching. He moves through a vinyasa, and I can’t take my eyes off of his legs, the part of his thigh, the playful childlike movements that simultaneously endear and arouse me.

Next he putters around, picking up the water glasses and coffee mugs and socks that have migrated around the apartment. He pulls out his toolbox and finds the Krazy glue and fixes something. He opens a piece of mail and reads the notice then files it into the recycling bin.

And then he goes to his bookshelf and rifles though a few thin books then joins me on the sofa. He settles into reading. I lean over to look at the cover. Poetry. He’s reading poetry.

“I love you,” I tell him, while still leaning towards him. I kiss his neck and then again and then his ear.

“I love you too,” he says, instantly. A familiar reflex.

***

The longer days and the heat from the sun and the buds forming up on the magnolias.

My mouth on the tender inside of his thigh.

The fullness of my breath, the deeply relaxed space across my belly, and the satisfying open stretch across my chest.

Walking together under a big umbrella to pick up groceries for dinner.

***

I like myself best when I’m in this space, where the details are exquisite and I feel expansive. Where love feels effortless, giving and receiving, but mostly giving. Everything is and always has been beautiful.

Only here, now, when I’m able to cast fear and doubt and insecurity aside, am I able to fully experience the infinite joy of living through a lens of love. The experience of being human, in all its agony and ecstasy.

I love the emotions. The smell of a crushed laurel leaf in my palm. The glance of a stranger. The sound of two words juxtaposed in just the right way. Your hand fumbling to untie my clothes.

There is nothing, nothing at all, without love.


Roots | Shoots