I wake up in the middle of the night to write for you my beloved but the mirror opposite the bed shows an exhausted woman, a woman who evidently has eyes with corners that cry and laugh, eyes that don't want to see the danger of losing you. I see shades and shapes adventuring on the walls. I see you unbuttoning my muscles from under the gown. I say: Touch me. I want an encore. I want to open my mouth to you. To drink you like wine. My eyes close open close open, my lips too, my lips. I am so romantically in love with you touching me, with your heart beating, your mouth breathing on mine that I move in the most unnatural way for my body. I need more of you to ease the emptiness at my center. I want me to surface shine you. Let my thighs knit around yours. I am a poet in love, a woman with dreams deep surfacing my hands where the fingers ray over your skin. You know beloved I love you the same way one longs for democracy in Iran, where men and women engrave on the walls of the oppressive regime's prison cells: Freedom. Touch me. I want an encore.

(continues here)