There she is, walking past me in our room, her beautiful eyes smiling with her lips in tow, my heart beating for her touch.

A slight breeze makes its way through our slightly open window, carrying with it the smell of jasmine emanating from the incense stick burning in the corner of the room. I hear you humming to the song playing softly in the background, and I just sit embracing every morsel of this moment.

You need to know where I’m standin’ now
That I’m right on the edge of givin’ in to ya
Baby it’s a long way down…

I reach for you, grabbing your hand as you pass. I stand to face you, with a tear streaming down my face I’ll surely blame on the ragweed. Yet, you know better, and you lean in to kiss me, taking with me every bit of fear created in the moments I spent waiting for you. You have been so worth the wait.

My mind drifts to the moments when I’d dream of times like this, of scenes played out like the night before. I’d think about those kisses, of feeling your skin against mine. I’d imagine what it would feel like to have you leaning on my shoulder, sometimes holding me up and at others being held up yourself. I’d see the images of our foreplay, of our friendship never-ending, of our moments a testament to the resurrection of romance eternal.

“You will never need to search for love again,” I vow silently, you somehow getting the message in my eyes. Another kiss, deep and passionate, as I take you to the bed we had left disheveled the night before. Another moment realized, another promise fulfilled.

In each morning after I give thanks to the stars for you, as I had the many mornings before you finally fell for me. In each morning after I touch you in honor of the mornings before I could only hope for such a thing. In each morning after I kiss you tenderly, knowing this great blessing absent the mornings before.  There is no question in this love. There never was.

The thing about life is that it is a rhythm of moderation sandwiched between a series of extremes. Those moments without give life to those moments with, with a truth established through the myriad of experience. A man who’s nearly died of thirst will always remain grateful for a drink, and as I look into your eyes I will be reminded of the moments without you and be born within a glow of gratitude.

Just like the Sun rising on the morning after.