Every conversation with you now is hushed. Stolen. Half my mind wrapped around the warm sound of your voice, the other alert to any sound of movement in my sleeping home. I sneak away to dark corners in the middle of the night, like an addict anxious for a fix. You are my drug, and some nights I feel like I need you in me, no matter what the cost.

I spend days dreaming of September or October, about seeing you for the first time after so many years. I lie in bed trying to remember the touch of your hand, the taste of your mouth, the warm smoothness of your skin. I cannot wait to be with you again.

My conscience is troubled by my sin, but the part of me that belongs to you asks: how can this be wrong when I loved you first? If every minute that I am with another feels like a betrayal of our love, then am I not living my sin everyday that I am away from you? I loved you first, I have loved you longest. I love you the most. In my heart I know that I have always been yours. Anyone else is merely a steward, a caretaker of your belongings until you come once again to reclaim your possession.

I live in a world tangential to what we see everyday. And in that world, you are my husband and I am your wife. We are not wishful thinking. Not an affair. Not a dream on hold. We simply are.

SONNET 17
Pablo Neruda

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.