I thought of you last night as I whisked eggs smooth. I folded flour in layer by layer and and sprinkled cocoa generously. The mischief in your eyes. The warmth of your honey-toned skin. The gentle wave of your hair. It all came to me as the whirl of the mixer filled the kitchen.
Last week I shuddered awake in your arms from a nightmare and all I remember is the searching in your voice as you whispered, “it’s okay.” I add melted butter.
Wrapped around my ankles is what I still carry from a time before you. It drags 3 feet behind me, a distant but ever-present reminder of the dark places I have been. I take no pride in the weight that comes as part of the package, but I take no shame either. Less honorable men roam the earth with this insignia of their doing seared into their history. Shards of their crimes left my body in 2 heaping teaspoons of vanilla.
350 degrees and 35 minutes later I held in my hands the labor of my healing. It’s not easy to show how I need you. How I crave the security of your embrace every moment we’re apart. I try, though. I have to, because you deserve it. Because I deserve it. I try to release all that I carry into oven-safe pans because something beautiful is calling and I won’t be held back any longer from answering.
In the still of the dark, one foot ahead of the other in a thin layer of powdery snow, I found your doorstep as mein tera — I’m yours — flowed from my headphones to my heart like an affirmation. The same flurry of butterflies from the very first warm October night I spent with you bloomed in my abdomen, fluttering faster as your shadow spilled through the bottom of the door frame.
Patake baje? — did fireworks go off? — is how someone me asked if you were the one.
They do, every time.
Everything stands still when we’re finally face-to-face. The gentle curve of your smile greeted me as your right arm enveloped me into your chest. “I made brownies” I breathed into your shoulder and in return, you snuggled me closer. It is in these brief moments of unspoken comfortable silence, the reaching, the grasping, the trying becomes worth it.
