You and I (a letter)
26th January 2025

When I lie in bed, you lie next to me in my thoughts, your gentle face amongst white sheets smiling, searching, connecting with me.

When I read a book, if it is one you have given me then you are with me in every page, every word and every thought conveyed, showing me who you are and letting me travel smiling alongside of you.

If it is one I am I reading for myself then I read it wanting to share it with you, wanting to know your thoughts and take on things, wanting to understand as you understand, see as you see. I read it for you.

When I am with friends, I imagine you are there also, imagine introducing you and your smiling laughing nature filling the room in conversation, you taking them it all in and enjoying the to and fro of whatever it is we have in front of us.

When I cook I take inspiration from you. I love seeing the arrangement of raw ingredients around a cutting board and wonder what you would instinctively bring to the equation, fished out no doubt from deep within the pantry of whatever you happen to have at the time. And I love immersing myself into it, chopping chilli and peeling garlic, knowing their aromas will stain my hands to bring this feeling of fulfilment back to me the following day.

And when you cook… when you cook T I feel loved in a strangely domestic sense, homely sensual undertones and overtones are infused through the physical space between us. That space lights up with a glow that leaves the rest of the world in shadow. And I see the happy relaxed smile on your face, and your unhurried nature, and I fall in love with you again, and again, and again…

And when we touch! My God T when we touch! The drape of your hand brushed across mine in the street, the gentle stroke of a forearm across a café table at lunch, the searching loving tangled embraces in the darkness of a movie theatre, or even my outstretched arms as I chase you around a room with underwear on your head both of us in fits of laughter until I finally catch up with you and hold you tight! Or… or in the deepest of deep intimacies during sex, sex taken every which way and always in the most loving caring feeling way I could ever imagine possible.

When we touch it is an instant communion for me T, between you and I, the world, everything I have known, and everything you have known, everything we have ever had in our lives and everything we have ever wanted as well. The outside world in all its dimensions and immense expanse, it shrinks down a kaleidoscopic telescope in those moments to the immediate space around the two of us. Joy becomes tangible to me in those moments and I know this is what I want, that you, are what I want.

And I feel truly happy.

In quiet moments away from you I spend time reflecting. I reflect that I am happily ruined on the shores of what I feel for you, and what I think and hope you feel for me. And I willingly roll about in those waves that wash over us together and turn us about, drinking them in, inhaling deeply the intoxicating air about you.

Oxygen rushes to my head and my mind reels with the unexpected marvel of this life discovered anew with you. How could something so good as this come to be I wonder, and I dwell on how amazing a life lived can be. And in thinking this I silently hope everyone in this world gets to experience this, gets to experience how wonderful life can be at every stage.

And for just the slightest moment, I shudder at the thought of how close it came to not being. I thank the stars that was not the case and feel incredibly lucky to know now what I know. How could it have ever been in question?

And as I continue to lie there, you still beside me in my thoughts, wrapped between those white sheets with your smiling searching face, I realise happily that I am infatuated and addicted to you and our love, this thing we have between us.

You and I T.

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