Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Sleeping Together

No, I don't mean making love.  I mean sleeping together.  Pulling back the covers and lying down and kissing a little and then closing our eyes, side by side.

I hadn't imagined just how much I would enjoy it.  I love waking in the warm cocoon of the blankets and reaching for him in the dark and finding him there.  I love the way he sleeps, the strength I so adore etched upon his brow while his mouth hangs open with a touching vulnerability.  Sometimes I kiss him when he doesn't even know it, on the cheek or the back of the head or against the unresponsive lips, and I breathe in his softness, this piece of him so private that even he has never seen it, maybe never even thought to wonder if if it was there.

Most often we lie spoon-fashion, his belly pressed into my back, his arm around me.  Sometimes he drapes it over me with casually possessive affection; other times, the best times, he grips me tight and draws me in until I feel all wrapped up in his being, his breath and his love and the smell of his skin.  Once he held me that way all morning, mostly awake as I drifted up and down through the tight warm layers of consciousness for over an hour before I rolled over and kissed him and the gentle caress of his hands turned fierce and hungry and demanding.

Sometimes we face each other, settling down to slumber after the final kiss and the last murmured endearment.  He nearly always falls asleep long before I do, so many nights I have watched it happen, sharing his pillow and feeling the warmth of his exhalations across my cheek and nose, and only then do I turn over, rousing him for only a second as I snuggle back against him and close my eyes.

When he has to work, he rises and turns off the alarm and gets ready to go while I swim in a drowsy haze, opening my eyes for his kiss and then rolling over to his side of the bed to snuggle into the pillows still warm and fragrant with the novelty of his absence.  After the sun comes up and the heaviness of the dying night has passed over my eyes, the bed seems terribly shabby and lonely without him.  Sometimes I actually sleep better for the rest of the morning if I move out to the living room couch.

And all through the night, the delicious chilly night that we float through together in our private pocket of warmth, the love within me rises and falls like a heartbeat: sometimes a quiet ebb, a presence in the back of my mind, feeling its way clumsily into my stormy dreams; other times loud, swelling, blossoming in me like a glorious golden flower: I love him, I love him, I love him!  And I press myself closer against him and remind myself that this is one dream I get to hold onto, and I am complete.