Captured

I climb in next to her, warm, welcome. Her hands paint pictures on my skin, symbols on symbols, a landscape of waiting, stretching time and sense and patience until it threatens to break. 

Until I threaten to break. 

She likes me thus, desperate, hungry. Her eyes seem to glow in the darkness, another of her seemings, bodies steaming up the windows, until I forget that I was ever cold, ever lonely, ever wandering the world in search of something.

In search of her. 

Once upon a time. That’s how the stories begin. Isn’t it? I can’t remember. The world has shrunk to this place, this woman who holds me captive, holds me still, holds me off, asking with her silence for me to scream defiance, beg forgiveness, ache, ache, ache with wanting. She keeps me waiting, keeps me sound, keeps me ready, always ready. 

Until I understand war. 

She is armored in amour as she dances just out of reach. I advance, steady, predictable. A front. Inside, I am wild, angry, willing to rend and shatter beauty. Willing to plunder, to plow furrows in paradise until it yields to the thunder of my need. I take, at last I take, and it is all I ever craved, all I require. I claim this place, this world, this woman.

But it's not enough.

In the satiated dark comes the whisper of a whisper of the thing I’d sought, the thing I could no longer have.  I remember freedom…and despair.