Passion

Passion, he said.
That may be the rarest, most valuable thing I have introduced into your life.

I thought there was passion before, I wrote back.
But not like this.
Never like this.

Passion, he said later, in an unexpected late-night phone call.
Most people don't have it.
They have love.
But rarely passion.

Passion.
It's different from hunger.
Different from love.
Different from feverish sexual desire.
And he's right.
I know he's right.
Before,
before,
I never knew it before.

And now,
when we kiss,
streams of passion stream from our lips
leaving steaming puddles around us on the bed.