On My Muse

I’m not sure you understood when, cuddled up to you, our noses touching, I let you know that you’re my muse. Oddly, I was scared somehow; scared you might laugh, or that you’d be a bit freaked out; or that your magic would dissolve in the discovery, and the lyricism would flow from your limbs like rain from the protective dome of an umbrella, leaving you ordinary. But I still suddenly had to tell you. You tilted your head like you kind of got it, or were at least willing to let me wax lyrical. Maybe you think I’m mad. I don’t know. All I know is what I see, and what I see is beautiful.

Yes, beautiful is the word. You’re a guy, so you twitched a little when I said it. Handsome is completely wrong- too brassy and big-boned for you, conjuring up grim images of coarse open-mouthed-eating lads cracking their knuckles. What you are is a throwback to the days when creatures uncaged and without nomenclature prowled and owned the earth; lithe, lean, epicene, bronze-coated, tyger tyger burning bright. Or even further still, in the birthplace of old tales of gods and heroic deeds, of myth, mystery and intrigue, man being subject to Nature’s whims; a Ganymede wandering life’s meadows with innocent eyes, finding spirituality in the world around you, beauty in all you see.

It’s strange. You’re an amalgamation of the magical and the mortal. Even when you’re lying sprawled across the bed in my fluffy lilac dressing-gown laughing at something on Iplayer, or sitting around naked absentmindedly post-shower fiddling with your various electronics, or pouring my cake sprinkles into the jelly before it sets, or being the man in our all-girl student house by helping fix curtain toggles or the kitchen blinds, or lathering up a ridiculous amount of shower gel with your eyes scrunched shut, you’re beautiful. I think I’d love you in pretty much any guise.

My muse.