v u l v a l i c i o u s You (fantasy 1) 2008-02-26 // 8:45 p.m. You make me want to stay home every night. Cook a meal. Let the rain fall onto the window and the street lights glow their pale orange into our faces. I burrow, make a nest in your arm, right in the space closest to your chest. Steady breath. You kiss my head. We finish the last bites of dinner, chewing slowly. Time travels like an inch worm. In the morning, the sun shines into our eyes and opens up a new day, every day. You say, "you're so beautiful in this light," and I feel like it's true, like it never had a reason not to be true. Like every other pair of eyes that looked at me just never saw, never could have seen, exactly the thing you see right now. Our home smells like wood. We have paintings of flowers because you can't bear the pesticides that go into the ones from the florist or the market. Sometimes I walk in with a bundle of wildflowers, and your eyes glow for a moment. We arrange them in vases and you ask me the names of each one. If I don't know, I make it up. You work in the garden most afternoons. I watch you from the kitchen window, see how you tend to each plant as though it were a child: capable, growing, but in need of care and guidance. Your tomatoes win prizes, and sometimes we eat them and the juices run down our hands and arms and drip onto our legs, and we laugh and laugh at the secret behind them: a little bit of talking and a lot of love. back-forth