We were in the kitchen the night you told me. You said, nonchalantly, as you always have done, you said 'I like this life just fine'. I thought about this for ages the way one can feel a lover's hip cupped in the palm of their hand for hours after the encounter. Now, perhaps you meant when you were little, and I did not know you. There are stories of you running, cherub faced and limitless, through a sunflower field in dungarees with ***** shins and muddy faces; playing like one of the boys. Back when people used to tell you you looked just like your mother and she would squeeze your small hand tighter. You were her one grasp on this frightening universe. Perhaps, you have came to the reasonable conclusion she is proud of you. Maybe, instead, you were thinking of this house. This small red build up in Manchester where we have built our life and where the foundations of our affection derive from such purity. We will raise children and die in these halls, happy and old, knowing our love was the chief beauty of my entire existence. I even gave some thoughts to those nights in Greece where you were drunkenly,  and magically, dancing with waiters until caramel sunrise brought you my way. I asked you the next morning what you meant, you smiled sleepily and kissed both of my cheeks with a hazy mouth. 'You love me in this life', you said, 'and such is all I have ever wanted in this world'.
So yes, I love you in this lifetime, and all my other lifetimes. I love you forever and shall adore you just as ferociously in the eternal falsification of our afterlife together. If there is ever any doubt, I wish to spend the rest of my life by your side and then whatever happens next is ours too. If I can, then I will....

But, I like this life just fine.