Still awake

I will make this up to you, Summer. In whatever way you ask.

…no clever quip?

“I’m still waiting”?

“You underestimate my resilience”?

No?

Asleep, then?

Hm.

July, July, my hope against hope.

“I’m not your anything”? Still no?

What to do with you, my love?

It is truly, truly unfair that I should be made to feel this way.

My dark-sky darling, all storms and hidden starlight.

Were you not meant to be a punishment?

No, not at all. Being without you was the punishment.

And how fortunate for me that it couldn’t last forever.

There have been times, my jaded gem, that I wished…

I have wished not to feel this—

               this everything that boils and builds in my chest at the scent of your hair.

               this nothing that unravels and voids my mind when I wake alone.

               this something, something indescribable for even me, on the so rare occasions I see you smile.

My lucid dream, I wished all this away with the hope to stop caring,

               to stop fearing your rejection.

               to stop the compulsion to throw myself at your feet.

And what, Miss Morgan, do you suppose is the worst of all this?

That even when you wanted nothing more than to see me dead,

I was still—am still—yours above all.

…you must be asleep.

You are so beautiful, July.

This isn’t fair to either of us.

That you should be forced to suffer my affection.

That you should be weathered into loving me.

And do you not love me?

Are you an even better liar than I am? I wonder at times.

My love—love—love….

My light, wholly and only.

My all that is good in me, in all the world, the things I’ve done to you…

               yet here you sleep at my side.

If that cannot be called the greatest of divine fortune, what else could it be?

We both know I’ve done nothing to deserve you or the way you see me.

What, then, if not luck?

O, my icy Summer.

O, my bitter sweet.

You don’t know the power you have.

I have never met anyone so oblivious.

My golden-eyed god,

               my silver-tongued snake,

                              don’t ask me again if I love you.