He saw her as Athena inside Parthenon that stands on a rock smugly looking down. She was the symbol of reign, a protector, a force still unfathomable to human. The temple illuminated his world as he lifted up his eyes. His feet froze in praise. She was the Aphrodite of his nights that blessed him with ethereal dreams. Every morning he found himself lying down on the footstool of her memories. He was a composer.
Tonight as they sat opposite each other on the floor, the glass house gleamed in moonlight. The crew was asleep in fatigue. They were performing at the opera next day. As she ran her fingers inside her tresses, he looked in reverence. “I want to play your song on speaker phone and watch your face,” he had prayed once. Tonight it was granted. He found her staring back at him in amusement. He craved for her words, not flesh. He wanted her curves dipped in poems or longed to kiss the symmetry of her thoughts.
“Hey you have got something on your forehead,” she said. He brushed it before she moved. The scar on his face twitched. He felt several knives cutting his temple. Good it was dark, he sighed. “Don’t distract me,” he said.
All he wanted to hear was her voice. He felt like the song could colour her beautiful face. He studied her eyes and sought protection. It was the concert that he had waited for many Sundays.
But he couldn’t dare cross the aisle between them. He was content standing at the bottom of the alter, a devout. He feared her. She was the source of her life, the singular element that ruled his songs. She was a Euphony that got him victory over noises.

The creases that coloured her forehead when she looked at him in worry. They were like the empty gaps on a musical note. He wished to fill them with sonnets. Her singular glance was the miracle he needed to breathe, and to bleed. He worshiped her drizzles.
———

She wished for once he would lift the weight of beauty and recognise the ugly crumbs. She wanted to bare her soul, undress her fears. She has waited all her life to be held, to feel weak in his arms. He was a monarch who would reign over her. Serving him would be her joy. She would please him by her profuse love. She would fill his cups with the nectar of her desires. She would let him rule. She would sing in her longing of him.

Something changed last night. She had carried him from the bar and laid him on the bed. She had found him for the first time, as he drifted away in stupor. The innocence of a child. The honesty of a man. Why didn’t she see him before? He was asleep. She sang a lullaby holding his face in her hands. She held him like her own child. She wouldn’t let nightmares cross his dreams.
Tonight she sought love in his eyes. She was desperate for the verbosity of his intimate desires, his dreams. She searched in the deserts and on the hills.

“I am not trying to distract you. I am wanting you to see,” she said. Several storms hit her, trying to shake her faith. She held on to the feeble flask she knew only he would break. She wished he wouldn’t keep the rose inside his notebook to freeze its beauty. She longed he would let it live for two days and watch it wither in peace. She craved he would crush her with his love. And reign on her soul arrogantly. And hold her till it hurt. And compel her to surrender. She would wait for him to come. Until then she would keep thirsting for a downpour.