She’s the first thing I see this morning.

Just like every morning.

I’ve spent another night with my arms filled with dreams of her but now I’m awake and she’s here in front of me and god do I need to live those dreams. I want to know every part of her again, to touch her, to feel her. For now though, I have to be content with just looking…

A vision, an absolute vision, is right before me and I can’t help but gaze at her, aware that my longing for her shows even through my sleepy eyes. I want to look at her for ever, such a wondrous sight deserves to always have eyes resting upon it. It would be a crime to turn away.

And so I begin at her hair, my fingers yearning to be caught once more in those glorious, tumbling dark brown curls. They fall haphazard about her beautiful face, and come to rest on the graceful curve of her shoulders, just the place where I’d love to be laying my head right now, my face pushed in tight against her perfumed skin. I want to inhale ‘til I am full of her.

Next, I move on down to her brow and drift away for the moment as I get lost in thoughts of how much I want to kiss her there now, like I’ve done countless times…but I know I shouldn’t.

On to her eyes, oh god those eyes. I close my own and think of hers slowly closing too as she moves in to kiss me and everything that I am aches to have her tie her tongue in pretty bows with mine, just like she did before.

My eyes continue slowly their journey over her perfect features and come to her nose. I smile to myself, reminded of how it wrinkles up when she laughs, and I remember how I adore the child in her.

Now to her cheeks. And I’m taken back, all that time ago, to when I first saw a blush rising in those same cheeks. How lucky I felt when I found out that the cause was a hidden desire for me. For me. I was amazed…

Next, her lips, ah those lips. Soft, slightly parted and so inviting. Her mouth and my mouth, just made for each other, a perfect fit. Like they always will be.

A quiet sigh escapes me.

My eyes are drawn back to the beginning of their journey and I lean forward, shy, self-conscious, as I reach across the bed. I kiss her there, on her brow, just as I do every day.

“Morning Bette”, I whisper, my sadness mixed with a little embarrassment, before I set the photo back down on the bedside table.

I lie back and turn to stare at the silent pillow next to my own – if I breathe in deeply enough I swear I can still smell her there. I reach forward only to feel how cold it is. I can’t help but torture myself with thoughts of how we should still be together, and worse still, with thoughts of how her life must be now…now she’s with someone else. I wonder if there’s any time…any time at all when, even though she‘s with her, she’s thinking of me…of us, and how we used to be. Does she compare everything they do to everything we did? That’s how my world is now…one huge comparison.

Life with her.

Life without her.

It is so quiet. Unbearably quiet.

I still love her so.

I wish she knew.