November 27, 2002
Mandalay
I can update now while he is sure to still be asleep.
Maybe it was the lights. Or the snow. In his hair. Crowning my hat like a halo.
Maybe it was the carols playing softly. Maybe it was the bad jokes. Maybe it was the reptile house.
Maybe it was just him, laughing at my smiling, his face glowing, his hood pulled alternately up and down, his glasses perched on his nose like an awkward glass bird, his soft kiss in the dark, his humouring me, his glancing sidelong at me...
I wonder how children could ever understand their parents love for eachother? I wonder... will mine?
I'm crazy. I know. Trust me. I know.
He doesn't help it. His hand shoved into his pocket, his elbow suddenly offered for me to hook my arm into. We're walking but it's not a wonderland and it's just barely winter but the snow is falling around us like wayward bits of sky and we look at eachother and I feel like I'm falling down some rosy rabbit hole from which there is no escape. We're tripping on the Christmas lights and suffering withdrawals from hot chocolate.
Back at the house, we make some for a twentieth of the price and play Tetris Attack. I am on Level 1 and he is on Level 8.
I just barely win.
And I want him and I take him and it's quick and we're slipping back into clothes but I just want to lay there in his arms, in nothing but his arms. At least for then. And later, month later, months later, year later, years later, we'll remember. And we'll smile. He'll be just as devilishly handsome. I won't be near as beautiful as he seems to think that I am.
Tell me it will stay like this.
astera at 10:45 a.m.