You don’t get to listen to too many hearts in your life. I remember the few that I’ve heard, and why I got to hear them.

I love the sound of yours, such a fervent rhythm. You have a beautiful muscle in there; energetic and ebullient and eager. It’s like the puppy in the gift box on Christmas day, held in against its will, demanding to be heard, messaging the outside world that it’s ready for me…

that it keeps you ready for me.

I love hearing it race, singing its up-tempo chant as it responds to your body’s needs, needs that I initiated. Hearing it

thump

its resonating beat through your ribcage as you rise to catch another

breath

before my hands take it away again. Your slow, luxurious writhing always gives you an air of serenity, but your heart is your giveaway. Its pace and urgency tell me the inside story. It tells me that in there where only you will ever live,

it’s frenetic,

it’s overload.

It lets me know that, in this unguarded, intimate moment your body isn’t the replete, controlled vessel at your command.

Right now it’s reduced to the primitive.

Right now it’s a million nerve endings all screaming for attention.

It’s an air consumer searching for its oxygen.

It’s an itch that must be scratched.

All that matters is the promise of satisfaction that hasn’t yet been delivered. All that your beautiful mind is working on is feeling what’s now and

wanting what’s next.

And inches below my warm, soothing fingers your heart keeps the beat to its own surrender.

 © Mark Lewis