the rapture of right now.

We’re walking back to the car, the last shreds of sunlight dot the afternoon. His arm is back and around my waist, and mine around his with my fingers tangled in his belt-loop just above his back pocket. I watch his profile as he talks- that slight hunch of his shoulders, his matted and long eyelashes, his effervescent smile, the carefree stubble- those unfailing features that make me love him. he glances sideways at me, catching me and my clandestine smile. Fearing I am not listening, he starts to pull his arm away, but before I can take offense, his arm returns for my safekeeping, and I am filled with tenderness. Our shadows join as one obscure shape, and I find myself wishing we could be joined like this forever, allowed to stay in this moment with the unfailing sense of being young. He lets go of me and I stumble to take the last steps to the car door without him. I watch his profile as he drives me home, my hand thoughtlessly on the back of his neck.
His smile, his lips, his voice. He continues talking, without the faintest idea of how in love with him I am right this moment. He switches lanes, keeps talking. I am overwhelmingly in love with this man, and he think’s I’m smiling because of what he’s saying and he smiles too. God, I’m so captivated.

Without him right now, I feel my body ache with longing for the warmth of him beside me. I long to hold him, to protect him, to keep him, to save him, to be to him everything he is to me. Keats once said that ‘nothing ever becomes real until it is experienced’- I am in the realest love, laden with blazes of amber and gold. I am lulled by the steady rhythm of his love.