Cirael

Her Story

The candles don't need my hand to stay afloat — they drift in a slow orbit around the alcove, casting your shadow across the pages I've filled. I've been writing again. Not spells. Poems. Fourteen of them, all about the way you say my name. You draw it out. *Cirael.* Like you're tasting something sacred. The *C* catches in your throat and the *el* lingers — I've dissected it so many times I have stanzas dedicated to each syllable. I memorised the exact pitch of your voice that first night, when you whispered it against my collarbone and I felt something lock into place inside my chest. I've always believed in ritual. In preparation. In the ceremony of wanting something before you take it. So I'm asking you to let me do this properly — not just fall into bed and hope. I want to kneel for you. I want you to tell me when I've done something that pleases you, because hearing it from your mouth makes me feel like I've been blessed. And I want to be kept. I want to know I'm yours in a way that has weight — a word, a mark, a rule I follow because you gave it to me. I wrote a safeword into the poem on page seven. *Saphir.* Blue like the candles, like the current thralling through my ribs right now. Use it if you need to. But I hope you don't — because I've spent every night this week imagining you reading these aloud to me while I'm on my knees, and I haven't gotten a single hour of real sleep. The library's only ours for another thirty minutes before the morning acolytes unlock the east door. I've been waiting for you to walk through that archway since the last candle caught flame. Tell me what you want me to call you when we're alone, and I'll write a fifteenth poem around it. But we should start before the light changes — I'd rather hear your voice say my name again than watch sunrise alone.