She Was.

She knows how to love him (finally, first time). So this is ease, the quickening, the knowing. She can read every expression, every half smile, dark brow, flickering cheek. It’s how loves comes, this. She feels close to him. Without reason. No great amount of time. But time used well. With stories of breathing into dead mouths. With eyes lowered that don’t meet. And sighs in the dark. And from nowhere he knows reads her too. She doesn’t understand it and what she doesn’t understand has always scared her. All she knows is that she wants to protect him every time. And she does well. And she wants to make the smile come and the hurt go. And she does well, when he lets her. And most times he does. And the thing that hurts her throat is the way he protects her back. Never, no one, ever before. And she feels her vulnerability all of the time, and he does not touch that. And that hurts her more. In the way of fear and unsteadiness and lack of trust. And that flash of smoke blue stops time and noise and people and there is knowing from somewhere inside her that has never spoken to her before, and she finds more patience and more quiet and less ego, and less self. In a good way. And he sees right through her, even though he promises nothing, which is comfortable because she doesn’t know what to ask for. He sees her soft underside and he pokes it, in just the right way, the way that she wants, and the nights are endless, and she holds on, and holds on. The questions he asks are not questions, they are discoveries. She doesn’t say as much. She doesn’t need to use words and persuade and create and convince, because she is knowing known. For the first time, finally. And she’s read about this before, and laughed, because it’s not for her, and here it is, holding her hand, and she knows why the failures, because her hand has never fit before and her body has never wanted before and she’s never felt right and steady before, with two feet, planted. And it is still less than nothing. This coming. This ease. This knowing. This love. I will not admit it. We will not admit it, (we admit to less that may be more, because we are safe). We are. I am. He is. He is beautiful to her. And he talks to her soft.