the habit of being

How quickly one forgets ordinary pleasures when one’s lover is away. Lacking the affair, the mind is one’s only company.

One’s own mind has such very high standards, wanting all this complicated thinking, figuring out, dissecting to entertain it. For this labor, there is no reward but momentary distraction from loneliness. The ego never loves in return, will never comfort in times of discouragement, disappointment, and frustration.

* * *

He has the smoothest, tiniest, most fine feet and hands. Through all his living, he has retained the gentle touch of a curious child. When he touches me, there is a complete absence of friction.

His palms and my curves are like liquids pouring in tandem. Though running from separate faucets, the streams reach for one another, mix, and become one potion.

* * *

Is it that the morning light is less lovely when there is other no long cool back to absorb it as it comes in through my window? Is it not always there, every morning, even as I am alone? Why will I not appreciate it then? My skin, also, means nothing to me, in the absence of being touched.

They are joys I do not have to think about that he brings me, along with coffee and cookies and wine.

* * *

The mind of a lover is like the mind of a grown up child. Sloppy drunken conversation is as elevated as any intellectual discourse. Silly games become fun again. It takes so little to bring about a smile. Happiness no longer seems a far-off and impossible ideal.