It Feels Like We’re In Love

Sometimes when we touch, I scream it so loudly inside my head I wonder if he can hear it. Sometimes I kiss him with the specific intent of letting him know. I don’t think he can tell, but in my head it is so clear. It happens when I realize I love him so much I can’t stand it, that the mass is so great I might implode; and instead of saying it, I, by way of some spiritual force, transfer the energy to him. Sometimes I can’t even help it. I don’t know, though, if he receives it. I hope he does. I feel it pulsing through me with every caress I give him. I don’t believe in telepathy but a sliver of me wants to believe he can hear me. Every lingering kiss and every long look is I love you I love you I love you. I run my fingers through his hair and hope the motion carries the message. I sweep the tip of my nose across his chest as the water from the shower runs over us, my nerve endings echoing it like a hallelujah chorus.

Sometimes I think I can feel it from him. I feel it when he grasps my neck and traces his thumb along my jaw line. When he holds my gaze as the rush comes. When he grabs my hand as my stomach tenses and legs tremble. When I turn on the stereo and walk towards him. I can’t pinpoint the moment when doggy style started feeling like puppy love. Even when it’s the roughest, I still feel the safest.

I hope that is how he feels with me. Even though he is the man who must be the protector of the house, so he says, I hope he feels safe with me. I hope that when we’re all doped up on kisses he feels like the house could crumble, but we’d still be there — on the bed, rolling around like two teenagers who finally got the house to themselves. A band of murderers could come busting in and they wouldn’t pay us any mind. The sun could explode and obliterate all life on Earth, but I would still feel his warm breath on the back of my neck.

They never explain to you what it’s like to lose yourself in someone. Through the years and the faulty relationships and the sex, I began thinking it was a romantic myth. It was a fantasy. It was courtly love. Losing yourself in someone seemed like such a feat. And if I said I’d never been in love before it would be a lie. I have loved to the extreme and I have been scared each time. Not because I was simply afraid of the loss, but because I felt that I had to prove myself; and that in the end the proof wouldn’t be enough and that I would betray myself. And I was nervous and wracked with self-consciousness, because when someone says jump and you ask how high, you will never feel in control.

But he never tells me to jump. That’s why I can trust him. Trust was the one thing I never gave. I’ve never felt it like this. I’ve felt the heat, sure. I’ve been felt up and turned on. I’ve bent over and I’ve backed it up. But I’ve never known that I’d unconditionally be good enough for someone. There was always the idea that I’d be left due to a lack of interest, or due to a lack of commitment — that they were holding out for something more appealing than me but that they were waiting to see if I was it. Their interest in me was shallow, and at most I was a fantasy and at the very least I was hope. I never felt the truth in their eyes or the desire on their breath, rather something generic and bland. Have you ever felt lonely in the arms of someone who is supposed to love you? This isn’t to say that my insecurities got the better of me. It was never a question of why I was wrong, rather why the relationship was wrong. Always on the edge. Never safe.

No, I’ve never felt it like this before. When my lips are on his and our hands are laced together and I can feel the shape of his hips against mine I get the illusion that I am invincible. I’m no fool. If the house crumbled we’d surely die, no doubt. But when I place my hands firmly on his chest and my eyes bear down on him, I hardly care. I look at the world all devil-may-care, and maybe that’s what invincibility really is. 

I’d survive if he left me forever, but I imagine a future with him as if he never will. That is the comfort of having someone you love, rather than loving someone you need. I chose him and he chose me. Or maybe, after the years and the relationships and the sex, that is the comfort I have found myself. I can feel it with his look. I feel like this is it. Maybe a part of him wants to believe in telepathy too. He gives everything to me in a glance and I know who I am to him. That was all I ever needed – to know. His fingers trailing down my spine give me shivers and his lips resting against my forehead keep me warm. All the things that used to turn me off, I now find endearing. We are the king and queen of the world. I have died a thousand times under his touch and I will die a thousand more.