Seni seviyorum

I wake up fully clothed and alone in B’s king size bed. As I rub the sleep from my eyes, I grab my phone from the night table on my right. It’s half past nine in the morning and I’m not home. I’m not home. Damn. Damn. Damn. I’m in B’s bed, in B’s room, in B’s apartment. I sit upright and panic.

"This is something I could get used to again every morning." B’s deep voice resonates from across the room.

"Take me home now," I croak.

"That’s all you have to say?" he asks as he removes his reading glasses and rests the Tom Clancy novel in his lap.

My heart sings at the sight of him bare-chested, rubbing his two-day stubble. I want nothing more than to run my hands through his chest hair and kiss him along the sacred thread around his chest and to have him run his fingers through my locks and kiss the sleep hard from me and to molest me with his beautiful hands and to wrap his arms around me. Instead, I get up from his bed as dignified as I possibly can and run to the connecting bathroom.

I squeeze minty toothpaste on the new pink toothbrush thoughtfully placed in the sink and gargle with mouthwash while I pee.

"Hey B?" I shout from behind the bathroom door.

"Yeah?" He’s right outside.

I take a deep breath. "What do you call an olive oil mouth wash, hmm?"

He sighs, but there’s a smile in his voice. It warms my heart and suddenly I’m glad I woke up in his bed. "What, M?"

"Gargoyle." Pause. "Get it? Gargoyle?"

He chuckles. "I get it. Now are you going to hide in there or do you want us to go for a drive and get your favourite breakfast?"

"I’ll be right out."

As I open the door and step out of the bathroom, he reaches for me and kisses me. I don’t even have time to move away or sidestep him or run.

"I love you, baby." He rubs his hand up and down my back under my shirt, pulling me close to him while I tiptoe to meet his lips.

"I love you. Then. Now. For always." I whispered with such urgency and conviction as I buried my face in his neck.

Puddles

The low street hum of our love affair started to catch up as fall leaves disappear in the Middle Eastern wind. Will we last until winter or is this just another phase in our infamous feverous and bittersweet love story? I keep my hopes in the lines of my palms, curling my fists for another onslaught that might happen in the long run, but this time, I want to fight off the despair and the guilt and basked on this feeling -- a feeling of openness and being one. The conversations that would last until the autumn sun emerges in the horizon, creating a huge bowl of tangerine, echoing the silent laughter I had with you in the midnight hour.

I gave you a moniker and surprisingly, you responded to it, taking a liking and accepting that I am the kind who would think of something out of the ordinary. 'Bee'. I let the word roll in my tongue and out of my mouth, its soft echoes tumbling along the lines, finding its soft folds to your ears. As I keep on remembering the time and space I first laid my glance at you, unraveling the thread I had wove together out of the late rendezvous in dark parking lots, of trips across the coast and roses resting at the back seat or finding the soft petals gently laid on my lap. The tapestry of you and me. The geography of our bodies. The response of my skin, the echoes of me wanting you singing in your fingertips. I would bury my face in your neck, inhaling your scent, you taking small bites and leaving a mark where I would stare at it for days.

Sometimes you would just hold me and wipe away my fears; in return, I love you silently like a secret I was afraid to say out loud but that I wanted to keep. There are silent ways I learned to love you when you weren't looking, things I learned to show but not give you, things I have only ever wanted you to know, things I am aware I cannot say for fear of the truth burning your ears. You’re the only person who found how to make something pretty of me, even if you did it without explanation.

Winter fog is here to stay for a while. Autumn leaves outgrow and the smoke of its slow burn will rise unto the heavens. I wish I could keep you until spring.