The Way I Love Her

 

She moves like dusk unwinding,
a breath of warmth on summer's skin.
Not perfume — no bottled bloom —
but the raw, soft scent of her,
salt and sun and sleep and soul.
It clings to me in the quiet,
a hunger hidden in air itself.

I follow that scent
like a prayer follows silence,
like fire follows the fuse.
My gaze undresses what cloth cannot hide —
the language her body speaks
in gooseflesh and glances.

I touch her not to possess,
but to understand —
to read the hymn of her skin
with the reverence of a monk
and the ache of a man.

My fingers are stories,
tracing poems along her shoulder,
dipping into the hollow of her waist,
pausing — not out of doubt,
but devotion.
Each kiss is a slow sentence
that says, “I see you. I want you.”

She shivers — not from cold,
but from being known.
Her breath catches,
my lips find the soft of her neck,
and the world melts away
into a rhythm older than names.

No words — just hands,
just mouths,
just the music of skin against skin,
as if time were made
only for this.

I love her
like the ocean loves the shore —
arriving, receding,
and arriving again,
never the same wave,
but always the same longing.

And in that sacred stillness after,
I hold her —
the scent of her still on my hands,
the sound of her still in my chest,
and the knowing
that this —
this is where all poems begin.