The Ink and Paper Romance

I hear you turn on the tap in the bath
Hot streams of water run down your body
Tickle your groins
And escape between your legs


You walk out and drop your clothes in a heap
Dirty and sweaty
Dirty-
From the long night in a room, airless and loveless
Sweaty -
From the heat of my burning lust, while you slept; snoring

A half-filled coffee cup

Half empty

Half full

Put down impatiently

"I'm getting late for work"

You leave, closing the door behind you

A loud bang

A hard, unsympathetic slamming of the door

The silence shatterns

So do my dreams

I take out a fresh sheet of paper

White and virgin, like me

And dab my pen in ink

Black and beautiful, like you

I scribble on the paper, little nothings

Let the ink glide over its surface

And gush out in bursts of passion

Taking over the whiteness

And destroying its virgin blankness

As a hopeless romantic, I have always loved romances

The only magic in the real, cruel world

It fills me with hope,

Love, longing, and lust for life

The big romance

The small romance

The happy romance

The sad romance

And the most beautiful of them all

The ink and paper romance