Growing up, all the sermons at church were about abstinence and devotion to God. About right and wrong and what will get you into Heaven and what will get you into Hell. But I am fully convinced that no priest I have ever encountered knew what he was talking about. Not really.

Because when I can wake up to you, your soft bare skin exposed in the sunlight pouring into the dusty attic, I know far greater things than Heaven could ever show me. I was not abstinent, and all my devotion goes solely to you.

My stomach is glued to your back in the sticky July heat and you smell like life and love. You stir gently, I rest my face in the crook of your neck. The place I always come back to when the day is over.

“Go back to sleep,” I whisper. I am graced with the goosebumps that rise across your flesh in response to my breath trickling over your neck.