I…

I like you at night.

I like the things you let me do, as you pretend to be asleep in starfish formation. Or, how you can spend an hour after the shower making sure that cocktail dress hugs all of the right curves, using ground charcoal to draw almonds around your eyes, crimson lipstick, oils and fragrances from flowers of the temple, like you’re going to be entertaining a Pharaoh. You do all of this, and then you let the lion in me be a beast until all that’s left are shreds of silk and smudges and smears and echoed moans; a beautiful reality, humming love notes in lips close, hushed tones. You let me do this because in this we both find peace. I like it.

And then I love you in the morning.

I love how you lay there, crust in the corner of your eyes, a dribble of drool in the corner of your mouth. Wrapped in a blanket like you’ve been put in a basket and sent afloat up the river Nile, amazing civilization with the existence of you and what you've created; with nary a care in the world. You wear simple things or not anything. You’re entertaining no one. In your dreams you’re back home, in the land of milk rivers and honey dew oceans. The universe ebbs and flows with the rise and fall of your chest. The inhalation and ex...of your breath liberates and embraces the air around you; it is grateful. Your face is a blank canvas once more. I've died, and you live. I love it.