A Decision

There's a single lamppost lit outside on the street below my window.

He's been asleep for about an hour. He didn't hear me get up. Things are so uncertain now. I feel that at any moment that room may turn upside down or perhaps the floor may start to crumble or swivel around, like in my nightmares. But I remain right side up and on solid ground for now.

Last month, I was sick with a terrible fever. Alone, 10 stories above the so-called solid ground, the walls moved, the rugs swam around the floor and the sheets dripped onto the floor, I walked around my home, only to open my eyes to realize I was still in bed, all things stationary. I heard my grandmother call my name in the dark. In that second, jerked back to the present, lying in bed sweating and barely breathing, I was gripped by paralyzing fear. Not that my Granny was speaking to me across the gauze of another plane, but that I was truly alone up there.

Tonight, the lamp and the sleeping man, the one who I feel so much for, keeps the alone away. Though things may crumble beneath my feet, I know he will try to catch me and the single street lamp will light my way. And in this moment, where I stand naked in front of this window, soft breathing behind me, this blue room that I helped paint, I turn to him. My silhouette will keep him company as he dreams of blue skies he won't remember tomorrow. I know with more resolution than I have ever felt in my limited years that though I am followed, tracked by uncertainty and uneven ground, I am sure of this man. I am sure he is a good man, honest to a fault and that his love for me is true and layered. His love, his heart is something no other man has ever given me. No other man has meant more to me, loved me like he does and for this, I have given him my whole heart, my trust, my everything. He is it for me. Of this, I am certain.

I lay down next to him as the clock downstairs chimes 3am.

I fear that it will all be taken away from me so I drink in every happy moment, like this one. But then I relax, hold him close and allow the fear to siphon away, for now, and drift off to sleep, where I can dream of blue skies and us and wake up with those memories.