When I met you,

I was scared of loving you.

I didn’t have great experience

with the temptress called Love.

I tried to fight it, tried to pretend

that it was something else.

Merely a very acute sense of lust,

possibly a very large infatuation,

or perhaps a very vivid daydream.

However, the more I tried to tell myself

that what I felt for you wasn’t love,

the more the feelings inside of me

insisted I pay them heed, that I listen.

I carried them around inside of me

for days. I was easily distracted,

lost within my own world,

because all I could do was

think about you. You were

in my thoughts and in my dreams,

filling up my words, even those

not spoken or unwritten.

Your love was a constant for me

and it had yet to come to fruition.

You were the one to say the words first,

those three words that evoke a magic

more powerful than any other spell,

more consuming than any other potion.

You looked at me with light shining around you

and you said the three words

that I was afraid to say:

“I love you.”

The light within me grew brighter

and there was nothing I could do,

I couldn’t hold the words back.

“I love you too, Michael.”

With the saying of those words,

a floodgate was opened.

Everything looked different to me,

and the world became something

that I wanted to experience rather than

something I lived in. The sun is brighter and

the world more beautiful because of you.

I never knew that love could be so easy,

that it would be such a gift.

You are a blessing to me every day we are together.

Loving you and being loved by you

is a magic beyond anything I have ever known.

Thank you for filling my life

with a pure and beautiful love.

Loving you is like magic

made real.

There was a moment on my path

where things got dark, darker, darkest.

I looked up to the sky and wondered

when the clouds would pass.

I laboured on, despite the shadows

that loomed over the ground,

making the trees that lined the path

look impossibly tall. I walked on,

believing that I had to do

everything by myself, that I

was the only one I could count on.

Over time, things got a little easier

but I was lonely at night,

when the stars came out

to tell me their stories,

dancing across the sky

in an ethereal ballet,

I wished that I had someone

to watch the beauty with,

someone to take in the light

and let it shine out of ourselves.

Still, I trudge onward, knowing that

there was more to life than

shadows and misery. I knew

that there was joy and happiness

and brightness if only I took the time

to look around me to see it.

I walked on, my feet ripped up by stone

and glass, still determined to walk forward

instead of going backward. I just knew

that there had to be something better.

I fought on, my body scarred

and my spirit broken but healing.

I was picking up pieces of

the chalice that had fallen out of me.

I felt like I was following a path

of crumbs, like Hanzel and Gretel,

fleeing from the dark forest towards safety.

I walked on, and began to see

a light that grew brighter with each step.

Slowly, the dark clouds and the shadow trees

fell away until there was only light.

Standing in the middle of the light was you.

You held out the last piece of the chalice

and in your grasp, it looked like a diamond.

“This is yours.”

You said. I took it and felt it

slide back into my body.

You looked at me and reached out

your hand for mine.

“Come and walk with me.”

You said. I nodded and you took my hand.

We walked on and, after a while,

you noticed my feet. You bade me to sit

and you washed them and bandaged them.

“I’ll take care of you.”

You said to me.

We walked a little further, and the

the skies becoming brighter with each step,

I tripped and almost fell

but you held tightly to my hand and said:

“I’ll support you.”

We passed by a brook, it’s surface

like liquid glass. I could see myself

in the waters surface and turned away,

unwilling to look at all the scars

and lacerations upon my body,

marks of what I had been through

and what I had survived.

but you took my face in yours

and looked into my eyes.

“I love all of you.”

A hush fell over the land and a

soft breeze ran through the grass

making it whisper.  As night came on,

we could see the stars above us.

“And I love all of you.”

I whispered.

I looked to our clasped hands

and saw that a light, brighter than the moon,

shone out of them. It flew up

to the night sky and as it did,

it broke into pieces of softest light

that looked like diamonds against

the inky blackness of the sky.

As we looked up to the skies,

to the ballet of constellations

that was taking place,

I pulled you closer,

and watched as the tattoo of our hearts

was matched by the pulsing of the stars

in the sky.

 

I remember the moment

when I first saw you.

You looked at me

with your head framed

by a halo of light

as if you were made

from the sun.

I remember the first time

that we kissed.

It was dark outside

but I caught a glimpse

of the stars and they

seemed to burn brighter

when our lips touched.

I remember the first time

that you told me

you loved me.

Time itself seemed to stand still

and the air around us

was silent but filled

with such longing.

Everything with you has felt

as if it were out of a storybook,

like it was too good to be true.

I have to remind myself that

what we have together

is not being lived inside a storybook,

that it is so very real.

We were lucky enough to find

a storybook kind of love,

yet it lives and breathes

beyond the page.

You are proof

that miracles do happen.

As we embark on the next chapter

of our lives together,

I can’t see what is coming,

but I know that I will have you

by my side.