Mania

A Chapter by Ruuubyy

Mania

“Obsessive love; experience great emotional highs and lows; very possessive and often jealous lovers.”

I held my breath until it hurt. I was trying to slow my heartbeat down to match yours. You had been asleep beside me for four hours, and in that time I had memorised each shape, every freckle. I’d become fluent in the way your ribs pushed out from your skin. The way your chest jumped when you exhaled, as though you forgot how to do it. I’d written novels in my head about how much I loved the energy I felt around us, and the fireworks I felt when our bare skin touched. I thought to myself, I wished beyond comprehension that this moment could perpetuate for the rest of our lives. I wanted this passion and fire to go on forever, and scared myself of the lengths it could push me.
You woke up. Your eyelashes fluttered just slightly, I watched you squint them closed again, as though you were fighting for five more minutes of blissful dreamscape. Fingertips dusted over my hips and rested on my waist, radiating electricity as they went. The tightness in my chest got tighter and I let out a sigh, I tried to inhale you. Scared that if I closed my eyes you’d be gone when I opened them again. A felt the rumble before you spoke, the deep growl started in your chest and followed with a heavy groan as you sleepily mumbled “I have to get up and go to work.”
“Don’t go. Stay in bed with me.” You replied with a kiss. Reality left as I forget everything but your lips in that moment. The whole world stopped every time I closed my eyes and felt your mouth on mine. I was addicted to the way I felt when you touched me, the universe reversed and you became the sun I orbited all over again, every time. I became hungry for every cell, every inch, every part of your being. “Please don’t go.” You kissed me again, but it felt different. As you drew in, I could already sense you pulling away. I hated this part. As you rose from bed, it felt like the sun was going backwards, and chaos was inevitable. Like those feelings of confusion when you wake up and forget where you are, it felt wrong. The centre of my world was moving further, the magnetism, my centre of gravity. The rules of physics that I lived by started and ended with you, and nothing made sense without you. I was by no means a person of faith, but you were my science, my certainty. I didn’t have hopes in you, I had a volatile need for you. It wasn’t my belief, it was my reality. You had become my reality.