A night in with you
When the stars align,
Neither of us too dog-tired
To actually notice the other,
Combined with snifter of a red wine
That we once drank by the bottle,
Can take me back
To being an awkward 19-year-old –
First week of university
Back-brace, big hair – who am I here? –
Noticing you
Who’d already noticed me
But really noticing you,
How you treated everyone the same
And were genuinely interested
In what people had to say
And how your eyes sparked with enthusiasm
As you sketched arterial highways on your college room mirror
Or dotted along the tendons in my forearm
Or closed your eyes to a piece of music.
Realising I was going from ‘interested in’
To fancying,
To sitting on a kitchen countertop, side by side,
Arms touching, closer than necessary but necessarily close,
Sparks and frisson flying between us.
A few hours later
We would be walking back over that timeless bridge
And stop to kiss.
From that point on there was no turning back from the rest of our lives.