#romanticwriting

You are the ember That stays warm in my chest When the night grows long.

You are the compass That finds me Even when I’m lost on purpose.

I save the last piece for you, Always, Without thinking.

The Unknown Lead to a Riff

The music room is filled with the sound of guitar strings playing out a cool electric riff. He sits on the amplifier with all glory as his fingers fly across the strings, filling the whole place with a vibe that can draw anyone—including the ones who don’t like music.

But his mind is elsewhere, wandering back to the past of that girl whose voice had him drawn closer without any warning. He later pulls out the book where he wrote a verse, one that gives an echo back to the song she sang.

While he’s flipping through the book, she walks in—soft and silent, but with a magnetic energy. He looks up and finds her, hair open and falling around her face, earphones in, a backpack slung over her shoulders. She’s casually walking towards him. She drops her bag, takes in the surroundings, picks up the guitar and turns around. She spots him and acknowledges his presence with a subtle nod.

She sits down cross-legged on the floor and starts strumming a soft tune. She hums something to it, and he joins in, softly playing out a riff for the tune she’s strumming. Then they go silent. A few beats pass, and the whole band pours into the room with chaos. The moment of silent tension vanishes as they’re pulled back into reality.

The tension sparks something in her mind—a plot idea for the character in her book. She keeps it tucked at the back of her head, making a mental note to write it down as soon as she gets back home. The glint in her eyes tells him she’s cooking something. Little did she know, he always read her stories anonymously.

I am frustrated to find that I love you. I started to tell you after one or three or twelve dates that I loved you a little. It became a joke between us, sly smiles quickly speaking these words to one another in the hope it would bridge that awkward-risky-scary feeling: Love. 

I am frustrated now because I do love you. I find my mind dancing through thoughts of us and you and we and me and:

I realise I love you.

I am frustrated because I was not once consulted in this. I never made the decision to love you. I never worked hard to love you. You made me love you and it is basically all of your fault! (You’ll have to live with the consequences).

I wake and roll toward you in my new bed that is big enough for the both of us but only half of it is used. And I smile and say:

‘Good Morning’.

And you say nothing. You just look. And what a wonderful look it is. You don’t look happy. You look in love. 

You call to me like a siren’s song, but I cannot always answer. I do try though. I sleep little and late to be with you and I would not have it any other way. Your sleeping is an unequal orbit soaring through space: sometimes the moon will catch hold of you and rock you to sweet slumber, but oftentimes it is the sun who picks up the aching bones. They fight over you.

I would fight over you. Or not. I am not a fighter, but I know that you mean enough to me that I lose track of my past when I am with you. I live fully and wholly in that moment with you: drinking coffee, waking in the sun, holding your smooth hands, kissing your sweet lips. That moment is my everything. 

That moment is hard for me to come by. I work long and hard hours in a job that I love, but I occasionally find myself longing for your company. Ours is a new romance, but I feel a sense of comfort with you that is hard to write on this bright white paper.

To date you more often and again after that would be nice. But to live everyday life with you would be best. I rise early so I slip out of bed and put strong hot black coffee in a dark old press. You can sleep a few minutes more before I gently suggest you wake up (good coffee helps).

How sweetly you danced into my world and made yourself at home. How we spent two days huddled in cosiness and each others company (doing very little, but so much).

It feels strange almost to suddenly not be with you after being so close for so long. Legs entwined like long knots of strong vines, arms encircling one another, finding out about one another in the small hours of the long night. What’s the time? 4.30am! It’s light outside, how time flies with you.

And how lovely it is to wake and turn and see you slowly breathing, eyes occasionally fluttering open. ‘Good Morning’, says I, lips curling into a slight smile. You say nothing, you just look, which is even more pleasant. You wear an emotion so purely rare on your face: happiness. And it’s fun to doze in and out of slumber with you in my bed which is normally too small for just me, but feels like just the right size for the both of us, shifting and turning but revelling in the close company of one another.

Coffee? I definitely need some, I am a sleepy bear without it normally, but you laugh at me and tame me with light kisses. I trace lines with no pattern on your shoulder (how do you still look so good?), but after a while you agree that coffee is a good idea. We have my hipster breakfast: avocado on toast with strong dark hot black coffee, and I interrupt your tales of your wonderful baby cousin with kisses whilst I busy around the kitchen. It is nice having you there, for you are a beautiful distraction.

Life is sometimes sad, or unhappy, or not as it should be. But today you and I are fortunate, and for once we have no troubles in the world. No distractions except one another (you are very distracting). Time flows in strange ways on lazy afternoons, and you and I exist in our lonely cocoon, a mixture of laughter and talking and dozing and happy silence and youandme. I have so many questions for you, and you are loaded with answers: Where did you do this or that? What’s your favourite book? Why? Do you have old boyfriends or lovers that you do or don’t talk to? Why do or don’t you?

You are a story that I beg to hear.

And I feel myself sinking into an emotion that I thought I have felt before, but never truly did. I dig my heels in to slow the fall, but alas, it is too late. 

No one has it all figured out, but for these two days I do. I’ve laughed and danced and teased and you have done all of these things with me and to me and we can remark how pleasant it is. I would not like to return to our normal busy lives, despite their fulfilment.

I feel bad. I am so happy with you and you are happy with me and we are well. I count down the seconds until I can see you and feel your soft hand in mine, and smile my crooked half-smile at you (your glittering smile far outdoing mine).

But I feel bad. It took us a long time to get here, we laugh and say that we are both terrible and six months late is better than never and it is and we are and I can’t wait to see you. Sometimes you are not there, a wisp of past memories floating by, but most days I find you in my life, in a particularly blue sky or a painting or picture or song or thought. Maybe I am getting ahead of myself.

But I feel bad. During those six months I saw another, someone you know and even though when we first met I was instantly drawn to your absolute loveliness, I did not recognise my fancy for you. Now I recognise it and the knowledge that it is reciprocated makes me laugh! and cheer and smile broadly from one side of my old-young face to the other.

But I feel bad. I did not have many feelings for the one I saw before you. She asked me out and I said yes, although she unknowingly hurt me. Yes I liked her, but I was alone and hurt, and I thought that she would be good to me. She wasn’t. She didn’t mean to be but she made me her accessory, another story in her life that already had enough tales to talk of. I do not dislike her, but it is always the elephant in the room with you and I.

So I feel bad, and I do not mention it. I wish to tell you all this, and hope you understand, but our synergy is so new and raw and fresh that I do not want to damage it. I don’t want you to think that I harbour feelings of any kind, because I do not. I wish I could go back and stop that happening, for that girl did me no good and broke me one more time. I was broken when I met you, and her, and I wish I had not.

You make me feel truly happy. I do not care about admitting it, as it is true and you and I are slowly weaving a new story, one that I am happy to work with you on.

Please do not feel like a second choice, I let an imposter play with my affections and she was not even on my poor frayed map. You were always the treasure and I realised that too late.