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I can almost forget I’m in love with you - No, don’t roll your eyes, hear me out first.
You have to understand; I’m so used to love you, it almost doesn’t feel like anything special.
Shit, that sounded wrong too. Stop laughing, I’m trying my best here!
Okay, I’ll start over. You like dragons, so I’m gonna go with a dragon metaphor, you can make fun of me after if you want. Now, seriously, stop laughing.
It’s in the little things.
I get up in the morning, and I already love you, I just don’t think about it. But it’s there, like a baby dragon still waking up, nestled at the center of my chest, blinking its eyes open to the world.
I stumble into the kitchen to make some tea, and before I can reach the kettle, you have already pushed a mug into my hands. It’s brewed the way I like it, exactly at the right temperature, because you always seem to know when I will wake up - it’s uncanny, really. Blinded by the light of your thoughtfulness, the dragon curls up and screeches, upset at having been risen up so mercilessly. It puffs smoke, filling up my lungs and I almost don’t realize I’m choking up on the tendrils of my affection for you.
The day goes on, you crack a bad joke, I find it funny and the dragon stretches its wings. It’s starting to get too big for my chest, pushing against my skin, I just think it’s because happiness is invading me. It roars, too, but I can’t hear it over the sound of your laughter.
It takes a nap in the afternoon, but it’s bigger somehow, fed by your presence, lulled by the sound of our violins practicing together. The dragon sleeps, but its claws are around my heart, its tail around my stomach and I think at this point, I don’t have lungs anymore, just its wings filling up my chest, I breathe through it. It’s heavy, but since at the same time it makes my steps lighter, I don’t realize the weight shift.
Evening comes by, and my dragon gets out of its slumber, shaking its huge body as you push the rice of our takeaway in my direction. It’s a bit angry now. It has been ignored all day, my body is too small for it and it wants to fly. It gives me warnings; its claws get tighter around my heart, the tail whips against my stomach and cuts my appetite. It moves around like a caged beast, shaking my core and filling my body with angry smoke and sparks of fire.
But I never listen to those warnings, because I’m too busy staring at the way the TV screen highlights the shape of your nose, the curve of your lips, the corner of your jaw.
That’s how I forget, you see. It’s like this every single day since I’ve known you. It’s been fourteen years, and the dragon is not a mythical creature anymore, it’s a very invasive pet that has been with me for so long I don’t think much of it.
At least most of the time.
Because when my dragon is done with the warnings - when it’s pissed enough at me - it reminds me it comes from another dimension, that it’s bigger than humankind, that I can’t comprehend it neither ignore it.
It bursts out of my chest then, spits fire until everything that stands between you and me is melted. Lava pooling from my body, spilling on the couch, taking away with it the scraps of my sanity.
It is a testimony of how well you know me that you just giggle when I jump you; you don’t recoil from my burning skin, you arch your neck when I try to devour you. The roar of my dragon is louder than the show we’re not watching anymore, than the cars zooming past the open window of our apartment. But you just have to let the tiniest sigh pass by your lips, and it shuts up, letting it be the only noise filling my heart.
I don’t know how you do it, but you manage to tame it. Every time it’s too much, every time I think I’ll be consumed - that my own dragon will eat me alive - you touch it in all the right places, look at it just the way it wants to be looked at, and it whines and shivers under your attention.
When it’s happy, when it’s satiated, it sighs, lets out a last ring of smoke, shaped like your name, and crawls back into my chest, not even cleaning up the disaster it left behind. It’s a selfish thing, it doesn’t care. But you’re not. You care, so you patch me up slowly, your fingers building me again, closing the wounds as you chuckle at your own jokes, kiss my shoulder under the sheets when we are clean and ready to sleep. I want to make you laugh one last time before we fall into slumber, so I say stupid things, anything to see you roll your eyes, to hear you snort.
Then I fall asleep with the memory of your happiness, and it keeps my dragon satisfied for the night, it purrs for the last time today. In the dark, the mythical beast is reborn in my dreams of you, it changes color and shape but never leaves my chest.
So that when I wake up in the morning, I already love you. And when it bursts out of my chest in the evening, I’m always surprised at its new appearance.
That’s how it is. Sometimes, I can almost forget I’m in love with you, until I can’t anymore.
You can laugh now, call me cheesy and shake your head, but I know the corner of your lip is already curling up, the same smirk you get when you nail a fast passage, flattered in spite of everything.