You are my puzzle. Sometimes, I orbit around you until I’ve had a view of you from every angle and then I leave.

You take these exits like you do your medicine, not so well.

“How come you’ve never asked me for anything?” you ask.

“What do you mean?”

“You know…like say ask me to buy you a book, treat you to dinner or buy you something like I don’t know…the things chicks ask for.”

“Are we in a relationship?” I ask. You shrug your shoulders, look outside…it’s drizzling now, my neighbor’s cat is busy calling out for her man…sometimes she makes me wake up in the night thinking someone dumped a baby right outside my window. You follow her movements with your eyes.

Cats are your kryptonite.

Women are like newspaper leaves; each page a new story.

You smile and gently rub my feet. I know where you go to when I put you on the spot.

What astounds me is how easy it is for you to run to what wounds you, memories of a time when the one you looked up to, up and left. Remember the time I yelled at you, “I am not your Mother! I am here, I haven’t left and you are doing everything to make me leave!”

It was the only time you ever asked me “please leave…” and I was too stubborn to leave, so you left and never came back until the next morning.

You found a memory of her at the bottom of a bottle, in the warmth of another woman…and simply declared “you are too close, we’ll only be friends, I can’t let you any closer.”

Do you remember this day?

Do you remember those words?

I can taste them on my tongue. Sometimes when I close my eyes, I see your wounds and gently apply some salve to them…and you always lie there, serene, with a smile on your lips…your hand gently wrapped in mine, and in my dreams you are bliss. In my dreams we orbit each other, you are my sun, I am your sun.

In my dream every word is said through our eyes…every emotion felt through touch and when I dare to open my eyes, they are nothing but exits and orbits.

You look at me and smile, then let out another easy laugh, “I love how you go into your world when I am ready to answer your questions. Marry me, the next time you come to me, come not as a friend, or worse off a listening ear, but come as Mine.”