LXI

World Between Our Sheets.

When I’m in bed with you, all the world is as naught. The howls are quiet, the babes are asleep in their houses, the sky is colourless and the moon shines no light. There is no thief or betrayer, no soldier or soul-taker, there is no war and there is no wilderness. Outside there may be people, there may be voices, there may be armorers and dead things and wild things and love and lust and hate and triumph and stealth and gnashing of teeth and brokeness and retribution and regret. But inside, where it is warm, there is none of that. There is just you and me. When I’m in bed with you you are the world to me. And it is only when the morning breaks [who says it’s morning, who is an inanimate object to tell me when the getting up is right and the going out?] that you leave me, and I am nothing again. Until you return. I remain nothing. Until you return. My world.