It is the softness I remember most.

The way you drew my hand into yours, a living, active motion. Moving your fingers against mine. Tracing my palm with your thumb.

Your eyes were kind and gentle. Blue and deep. Soft in their gaze.

For those moments my world was made of curves instead of edges.

So it is the softness I remember when my days are hard.

This world is so hard. 

But the place between us. The place where our hearts and bodies touch is so soft.

That is the place where our love lies.

And love, real love is rare and holy. 

We treat it with reverence, foreheads touching, breath aligned, and hands clasped together.

Our hearts hold the space.

In this place, it is only you and me.

Step inside.

Love me quietly, love me gently.

Take what I offer and give all you can.

I will not turn you away. You are beautiful.

Open yourself to me, bare and raw.

Let me love you, quietly and gently.

You are moving slow and I am still.

Close, our thighs touch. Butterflies start dancing in my belly as I feel the heat rise off of you.

Like a force field, the heat envelopes us and blocks out the cold of Winter.

I take your hand in the silence between us.

Then you whisper,

I find you irresistible.

Knowing that is part of the problem but also the solution, I lean in and whisper back,

Soften into me.

You sigh out your breath, low and quietly.

Your hand opens wide, then closes again, around mine. Sealing our palms together, fingers interlaced in prayer form.

The air shifts as all the butterflies are released from my belly, flying around inside our force field.

Given over to love, you soften, lean in, and kiss me.

Swimming on a hot July night,

standing waist-deep in the Lake under the moonlight,

chest to chest, arms wrapped around each other.

That moment in time. 

My favorite person, holding me in my favorite place, under the moon.

You kissed me and said the words.

We tried again.

With painful declarations and tears in our eyes, we agreed to part.

But I wrote and you called.

You are at my door. We sit side by side, leaning into each other.

Your inability to part, your unwillingness to unbind yourself from me.

The way you keep my things. My key, my letters, my bracelet, and my heart.

You refuse to let go of them.

You keep them near you and just close enough.

Close enough for hope.

Every time.

I allow it all and keep that space for you.

Because your heartbeat when you pull me in is loud in my ears.

And your kiss stirs my soul from its stillness.

You awaken my heart to the possibility of the impossible.

My hand in yours ignites the flame of hope…

Hope.

It is the most reckless feeling.

I sway with the wind in the dark.

Listening to my heartbeat.

I reach down deep to the place where love lives.

Where it is formed.

I pull a piece of love out and think of her.

Carefully but with intention, I release love into the wind.

Hoping that piece will find her, bring light to her dark, and help bind the hole in her heart.

The sparkle of your eyes, clear and blue when you smile, dances like swirling stars upon my heart.

And when you are brave enough to look into my eyes, something breaks wide open in me.

I’m looking into the Universe. Vast and stunning.

What pours out of you fills me. I never feel more beautiful than when you look at me.

Those parts of you laid bare in your stare prove to me there is still good, love, and beauty in the world.

I see you for all you are and all you can be. And you mirror that back at me.

For those few moments, we are both the best versions of ourselves.

It seems for you and me,

there is no way to say goodbye.

Letting go of hands and drifting away, we find we are tethered.

Twin flames drawn to each other in the dark.

We are bound.

Our love is a beautiful ache.

And we are forever returning to fall into one another.