The Golden Alcove
A dream of desire fulfilled
There are places the waking mind cannot build—
only the dreaming soul can raise them.
And that night, the unconscious built her house.
Not a house of brick and lumber,
but the one she keeps behind her breastbone—
the great hall of her spirit, open and sun-washed,
lined with long alcoves carved like rib vaults in a cathedral
made intimate by breath.
At the end of each alcove a window blazed,
and autumn poured through them
in great sheets of gold—
warm, weighted light that pressed against the skin like a held gaze.
Beyond the glowing glass, trees bowed and waved,
brilliant with chattering hammered coins,
their leaves whispering against one another
as if sharing a secret meant only for us.
The air was hushed, ripe,
heavy with the pause before winter’s exhalation.
She appeared clad only in light and warmth—
no seam, no boundary,
as if desire itself had learned her shape.
Bare feet kissed with plum stepped across polished stone,
and when she looked at me
those mica eyes did not search—
they claimed.
They saw my truth.
They accepted my end.
Like a song I remembered before language,
she said, “Fill the basin.”
A wide stone bowl surfaced beside me,
smooth, cool, receptive.
As my hands traced its hollow,
the water rose—
pure, alive—
sliding over my wrists,
up my forearms,
as if it recognized me.
When the basin brimmed,
she leaned closer—
close enough that her warmth altered my breathing—
and whispered.
A flame bloomed above the water,
hovering, eager,
flickering like a pulse that had learned to glow.
It broke the laws of the real.
But this was not the place for reason.
This was the place for offering.
I cupped water and lifted it toward the flame,
letting it spill between my fingers.
The fire did not retreat.
It licked higher.
Water and flame teased one another—
touch without surrender,
heat without harm.
She smiled then—
slow, knowing, ancient—
a smile that began in her mouth
and finished somewhere deep in her hips.
She gathered pillows into the sunlit corner,
their fabric sighing as they shifted,
and lifted a long flowing cloth
woven in colors that do not exist in waking life—
saffron deep as breath held too long,
wine-purple like skin pressed hard,
molten bronze that shimmered with promise.
It was a ceremonial wrap,
a shroud,
a blessing—
undressed by intention.
“Come,” she breathed.
Not an invitation.
An invocation.
Her hand closed around mine—
warm, sure—
and the world narrowed to the contact of our palms,
the shared rhythm forming there,
the gold humming through the windows like approval.
We lay together on the pillows,
and the alcove brightened—
the flame-water bowl spilling its impossible union,
becoming a river of fire and glass
that pulsed beneath us,
slow and insistent,
like a second heartbeat.
The light grew electric.
Alive.
And then the walls dissolved into tall golden grass,
each blade a filament of sun,
brushing skin,
catching breath.
When our bodies met,
the world answered.
Trees swayed above us,
casting moving sigils of light across her skin—
runic, ancient,
as if the first dawn were writing itself again.
Her breath broke,
and the grass broke with it,
the whole dream inhaling her pleasure.
We moved through one another
the way constellations move through the night sky—
inevitable,
ancient,
burning.
Time loosened its grip.
Stretched.
Forgot what it was for.
Only sensation counted now—
the slide of skin,
the sound she made when I learned her rhythm,
the way the world leaned closer
to watch us remember.
And when desire finally softened—
as tides always return to the sea—
what remained was the truest thing.
Her curled into my chest,
heat lingering,
my arm heavy around her waist.
Her fingers traced slow shapes on my forearm—
not idle,
not unconscious—
but deliberate,
as if blessing me in a language older than speech.
Cicadas sang their resurrection hymn.
The wind stroked the grass like a mother’s hand.
She looked at me then—
not with hunger,
but with recognition.
With worship.
With the gaze that forgives
a thousand lifetimes
and chooses you anyway.
She told stories—
joyful, ridiculous—
her tongue forming Latin, ancient and holy,
and though I did not know the words,
I knew the laughter against my chest,
the warmth of her thigh,
the golden pulse of her skin.
I understood everything that mattered.
And as the dream curled its arm around my shoulders,
I knew—
This was not a fantasy of flesh.
This was a remembering.
A place we return to
in some old corridor of the soul
where fire balances water,
where bodies are not shameful,
where love outlives time.
The golden alcove still holds us—
even now—
lit by a flame that cannot drown,
fed by a river that cannot burn,
in the season where everything tender
is allowed to be true.
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Thank you for coming here and walking through the garden of my mind. No day is as brilliant in its moment as it is gilded in memory. Embrace your experience and relish gorgeous recollection.
Into every life a little light will shine. Thank you for being my luminance in whatever capacity you may. Shine on, you brilliant souls!
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