When I Look At You

I look at you in the recliner

Holding a Solo and your phone

We're relaxing after dinner

You are my heart's home

I send you a meme on Facebook

And wait for a cackle from the next room

You read a screenshot through the wall

I laugh, and feel my heart bloom

My fingers dance over a keyboard

I'm writing another book.

I keep a scene because I know you'll love it

Even if others think that it's crook

I look at ring designs on Etsy

Because I know you'll like one unique

It's based off your favourite fandom

For you are my beloved geek

I read fanfic aloud on a lazy day

I know when to pause for effect

I love to watch your reactions

I feel my life is perfect

You trust me with pain and heartbreak,

As much as with joys and dreams.

You smooth my jagged edges,

Know when I feel more than it seems.

We can be quiet, or anxious, or sad,

Or happy, or excited, or loud.

We are never too much, and always enough,

We've come so far, and I'm so proud.

A glance is all that is required,

To know what the other needs.

We read volumes in every expression

It is no trouble for the other to heed.

The room is still and quiet,

Peaceful, a world of our own.

One reads as the other slumbers,

Hearts reside as imaginations roam.

I can picture our lifes together

Stretching on until the end of time

I love you and think of our future

I an glad that you chose to be mine

A poem inspired by sitting in the loungeroom after dinner with my partner, reading Facebook over their shoulder and procrastinating working on my latest draft.

Within relationships, communication doesn't always have to be verbal (though my favourite moments are when Lyndal is editing and shouts at me through the kitchen wall because she's just hit a cliffhanger and Character X had better be alive in the next chapter...!). Sometimes, a single glance is enough to know what's needed, whether that's a hug, reassurance, or just the opportunity to be quiet together.

Often, love is in the little things, rather than grand gestures or florid declarations or flashy speeches. There's a time and place for those big things, of course, but the true test of a relationship is in the ability to do nothing in the same proximity, without feeling like there is anything lacking. Love is funny like that, sometimes...

While this is a poem, rather than a short story or other prose, I felt it fit the challenge, and there was nothing saying that the entries for the Unspoken Challenge couldn't be a particularly long poem...

I'll probably have more entries later, when I'm not sitting on a bus and trying not to let my phone go flying every time the driver jerks to a sudden stop, but for now, you can enjoy this entry.

If you enjoyed this, check out the other poems on my profile, and leave a heart or a tip.