There are moments when 3 am is close and I have just finished a story that matters, when I want desperately for someone to be awake to talk to, chat with, to see or touch. If you were here, if we were home together, you might be sleeping, snoring softly next to me, pressing your back to my body so that we touch. I would hold on to you, let you anchor me to this world when my mind is still in the other world, when my spirit has one foot in my body and one foot in the story. I imagine I would kiss your hair and bury my face in your neck so I could smell you and feel your pulse on my cheek. I would not try to wake you, but if you stirred, I would just whisper, "I love you," until you dreamed again.
And even if sleep did not come for hours, like it sometimes does when my mind is in a story or remembering, I would hold you, listen to your breaths, and thank God for beauty, for stories, for finding my anam cara, my soul friend, my dearest love. Maybe I return to the story one day; maybe I write my own. But always I will reach for you, hold on to you, remember beauty and love, and then, I know that my world is even more beautiful than a story.
