She sits there, a chisel in one hand, a hammer in the other, a blank canvas cleverly disguised as stone directly in front of her. “She’s a hard one,” they say. “She’s tough to love,” they try to remind me.
I smile in the description, but I simply cannot see it.
The morning Sun shines nicely on her naked shoulders. She looks up, diverted from her stories and thoughts, if only for a minute. Her smile lights my morning, her glistening eyes betray a truth behind the smile.
The dream again…
She returns to her self, and those stories she likes to cling to. Her shell, hardened by years of tears and moments of bliss destroyed, is what others get to see. For me, I see so much more.
She feels soft like warmed butter when my fingertips draw little lines on her skin. She melts into me as I take her in my arms. I know her there, the two of us like puddles on the floor, making love wherever the moment demands.
She tastes like sweetened cream when my lips meet hers. She takes what she wants and gives even more. No softer heart beats in the throes of her passion, no stronger mind rises to meet me on the fields where we roam.
I hear the steely bits of her shell fall to the floor when I call her name. I can feel her love even when she’s far, as if she has never left my side. She knows me. She loves me. When I am weak she stands tall for me to hold, and when she falters no words need be spoken for her to grab my hand, and rise to her occasion.
The things I see most clearly are the things I see when my eyes are closed. It’s why we close our eyes when we kiss, or when we inhale deeply to catch a fragrance we wish to remember. Sometimes the eyes only get in the way.
I’ve learned to offer thanks for each scar borne upon me as evidence of my falling. In each falling I have risen. Each weakened step has made me stronger if, for no other reason, so that I can pick her up and carry her from the raging fire.
I know that in the moments when I need her, she will carry me as well. I know it in those eyes that betray her hardness with a soft glance. I feel it when her arms embrace me in a subtle mixture of grasping and letting go. I hear it in those whimpers that come as she sleeps, telling a truth that she rarely speaks of.
Yes, I love this woman. She leaves her cape at our door. She drops her cross in the foyer. Then, each layer of her falls to the floor as she makes her way to our room. Naked, unafraid, and wanting…
The dream again.
That is a special dream, the dream of a space created by two where each and both can leave all those layers of shell behind and be naked in more than body.
The chocolate ribbon really nails it for me.