Love

the title doesn't fit the feeling i tried for in the poem, but it needed a title. -enjoy-

 

He woke with a start. He didn’t know what woke him, but he was awake now. He looked around in the dim lamp light at his living room. Nothing was out of the ordinary. The movie had ended sometime before and now the TV was frozen on the start menu. He looked down at the lifeless form spread across the couch and him. He could smell the chlorine in her hair from their swim that night. Well, it wasn’t much of a swim; they were pushed and then stood clinging to each other for warmth in the shallow end. See, it was just barely May and despite the usually high temperatures in the South that time of year, it was a chilly night. She had clung to him, cold and wet, and he had protected her from the splashes of others. Now, she was asleep on his chest, her soft blonde hair fanned out covering her face. He could feel the soft beat of her heart and the rise of her chest against his.

            At this moment while she lay asleep on top of him he felt, not just her weight, but the weight of the world. Here was this slightly damaged-goods girl; this girl with the thickest skin and the warmest laugh; this girl who must have metal in her petit frame, and she loved him. This was not a silly, frivolous love, but a love where he protected her from everything he could and in return she shed layer after layer of her skin and clothing. She was no milk fed virgin. He was a choir boy. She had held his hand and pulled him down a new path, but it was her that learned the most. There was an intimacy to their love making, not like the selfish screwing of her past. He had taught her that. This was a young, whole heartedly pure love. He didn’t know what to do. She loved him and depended on him and that responsibility stopped his breathing, but so did her sweet smile. This was, among other things, a full love and he fully loved her.