Play song further along in chapter.
I'll let you know when.
1988
"Love is divine only and difficult always. If you
think it is easy you are a fool. If you think it is natural you are blind. It is a learned application without reason or motive except that it is God. "
— Toni Morrison
LOVE
A week later
Addiction comes in many forms.
One can be addicted to the high that drugs
make them feel. One can be addicted to biting
their fingernails during times of an anxiety
episode. One can be addicted to eating because
in their mind, it's filling a certain void within themselves. There are so many reasons why
people develop addictions, whether it's torture inflicted against the soul, or maybe it brings the troubled individual some temporary freedom of disturbance. There's a lot of reasons why.
Michael happened to be a man with an
addiction. His addiction wasn't an inanimate
object like many others addictions centered
around. Michael was addicted to a human. A
young twenty year old who making him feel so
alive. She made him feel so younger than he
actually was.
This was the kind of fun he should've had when
he was in his twenties but he didn't and the past
is the past, so dwelling on it would be useless now.
Now was not the time to dwell on anything because
the future seemed so much brighter.
There was no more fog blocking out the way, everything was clear. Life was finally worth living
for Michael because of Her. Magnolia.
She was currently laying in his bed. A place
Michael brought her back to every night.
She was sound asleep. Her chest heaved up and down from low breaths she took through her nose.
Her naked body was wrapped in burgundy colored
linen sheets. Her hair was all over the place and her
scent was everywhere. All over the sheets, all over
Michael. It was everywhere. He found her scent to
be intoxicating. He found her entire existence to
be intoxicating because of his newfound addiction.
Michael grabbed Magnolia's hand and softly caressed it with the pad of his thumb before
bringing it up to his lips. He pressed a kissed
against her hand and felt his entire body heat
up. This was the rush he felt when he was in
her presence but he was inside her he felt like
he was in another word. Every time Michael
buried himself inside of Magnolia he felt like
he was having an outter body experience.
He wasn't himself when the two shared a night
of passionate and intense, blissful, mind changing,
soul shaking, earth rattling sex. In all his 30 years
of living, Michael never experienced such want and
need for not only someone's body, but their mind,
their soul. The crave of their entire existence.
Never had he ever felt like this.
It was such a strange feeling but he didn't want
to run away from it. He wanted to run to it, jump inside with a leap of faith and hope that Magnolia felt the same way as he. He needed her to feel the
same way. He prayed that she did because well, he
found himself carelessly falling in love with her.
It wasn't the smartest thing in the world for him
to do, Michael knew the risk. She was twenty, and
he was thirty. Michael knew that twenty year olds
we're like Gypsies. They moved from place to place,
especially if they become bored with something and
wanted a change. Michael knew that people in their
twenties were basically spiritual nomads.
No twenty year old wanted to settle down.
Magnolia didn't even seem like the settling type.
If anything she seemed like the get up and go type.
If she wasn't happy with a part of her life then she
packed everything she had inside a duffle bag and
leave. That was what Magnolia seemed like.
Magnolia's seemingly Gypsy lifestyle scared
Michael because he wanted her to just be his
and never leave. Michael wanted her to be with
him forever. Michael wanted Magnolia to love
him, the way that he loved her...but that was a
lot to ask out of a twenty year old.
It was selfish. A characteristic that Michael
never owned until now.
Play song.
The Charmels played softly throughout
Michael's bedroom. As Long As I've Got You
played itself for the eighth time to be exact.
Michael was counting and though he was tired
of listening to it, he was too lazy to get up and change the record out on his vintage vinyl.
When Magnolia first saw it, she joked at how Michael was living twenty years behind everyone else. Which sometimes Michael was but he just
loved vintage things, that's why he owned a vintage shop. That's why he was currently listening to the 1967 hidden gem, "As Long As I've Got You."
After listening to it back to back. It was now
starting to resonate within his mind. He was
relating the song to his current situation with
his sweet sweet Magnolia. His favorite flower.
"No fire is too hot, no snow is
too cold Youth will never leave
me I'll never grow old."
Michael leaned his head down towards
Magnolia's lips and softly kissed them. She
was just so beautiful that he couldn't help himself. Michael kissed her chin and then the side of
her neck. Magnolia began to stir in her sleep a bit.
He watched in wonderment. He couldn't believe
that this beautiful human was in his bed, in his
heart but most importantly, in his soul.
She was all around him.
"I feel free as a bird
Flyin' around in the blue
As long as, baby
As long as I've got you"
Those words stood out to him.
Ever since Magnolia entered his life, life for
him had felt liberated. He felt free from the constraints of sadness that once engulfed him
into a unpleasant hug. It once squeezed him so tightly that he felt the air in his body leave. He
was slowly dying but she,her, Magnolia came
and changed it all. She made Michael want
to live again. She made him want to breath
again. She made him want to feel again.
She made him love again.
"If happiness was water I'd never run dry
If loneliness was a flower It would wither and die."
Michael's nose touched her nose.
His forehead was pressed against hers
His eyes were closed and his heart was
against his sleeve. It was opened for her.
"I love you." He whispered.
I feel free as a bird Flyin' around in the
blue As long as, baby As long as I've got you...
—
What's your thoughts so far?
Thanks for reading. Xoxoxoxo.
