When She Sleeps

So many nights I sit by her, alight the very edge of her bed, as she settles into her cloudlike pillows. I wait for her to find herself the perfect resting place, arranging and rearranging her beautiful self. Once her movement stops I run my fingers through her hair, down her neck and back and trace back up again. Sometimes I touch her face, lightly drawing the perfect lines of her jaw, or the faultless arch of her eyebrow. I watch as she rifts to sleep, notice the way her mouth relaxed, her eyes dance slowly under their lids, and I watch as she pulls herself back to awareness, the way her face changes just before those green eyes flutter open for the briefest second. I adore this time with her, though we rarely speak and some might consider it an awful lot like being alone. I covet it because it brings me peace, breath. In these hours my mind is full of art and inspiration, as my hands memorize her body like the map of an exotic land my eyes take in her loveliness and I feel good. I enjoy the idea, however foolish, that she needs me. She has become so comfortable and used to having me that somehow she sleeps easier with me here. While I fully understand that for my part I am interchangeable because what she needs is someone and I happen to be readily available, in those quiet moments it is easy to pretend it just might be better because it is me.