The Year

You are my once upon a time,

One of two equally matched protagonists,

In my authored story already 365 days in the making.

Around you I feel a soft ease,

A slow calm,

One that mimics the wind on those grey scale evenings when the trees barely ruffle.

One that brings a faint relief of cool as it tip-toes across your neck even without your permission.

One that acts as a reminder,

That you are my once in a lifetime.

Twin flames,

Who re-flame one another’s spirits.

Your ambitions speak to mine like distant echoes.

Whispering quietly,

Whirling haphazardly,

Yet creatively careful,

This has been the story of our destinies playfully meeting,

In a plush aquamarine forest that couches our unique story.

Everything I lack, you help build.

Everything I build, you help strengthen.

Everything I strengthen, you help support.

You are my once upon a time,

My once in a lifetime.

To think that there was a pause,

A page before our book started.

To consider that all that has made us,

Was to prepare us,

To arrive to each other,

Even before we knew each other,

This is quite the cosmic question to ponder.

Is this what it means to believe in fairy tales?

To believe in the make-believe believability of this reality,

This place that houses my once upon a time?

I remember that initial feeling.

So vivid,

So robust and concrete,

As though it were the first among many a numbered days.

My lungs,

Like a balloon,

Swelled slowly, calmly, with new air.

I resisted exhaling,

Wanting to stretch out each moment so far that it hung suspended,

Teeter-tottering in the balance,

Distending out an infinite amount of time.

You gave me this.

This sweet tasting stream of love,

One that rippled rhythmically,

One that filed every inch of my being until I felt ultimate renewal.

The distance was never easy.

It still isn’t.

It’s like this break,

This fissure.

One that sizzles under even the slightest rendering of sunlight.

Choking as it begs to be glued together.

And yet,

I courageously moved beyond comfort,

Audaciously stepping outside of what I knew to explore that of which I know.

That you are,

And have been even before I met you,

My once upon a time,

My once in a lifetime.

To wrap my soul around this deep and lingering knowledge,

This is my truest privilege,

It is the most liberating of freedoms.

For in it is the security of possibilities.

It is here where I learn,

As I inquisitively look back while looking forward,

The true meaning of ever after:

A perpetual renewal of the present;

An evermore celebration of the everlasting;

A brilliant and unending stretch that embodies this (com)passionate love.

You are my once upon a time.

My equally matched protagonist.

In my authored story that is already 365 days in the making,

You are that which has taken me by complete surprise,

That which has inspired my resolute leap into nirvana.

You are my once in a lifetime.

You are the emphatic hue of my ever after.

Beautifully vulnerable,

Mystifying and stunning.

A meticulous embodiment of what I have always closed my eyes in hopes of seeing.

You are what I could only before this dream of. 

What I surreptitiously anticipated.

You are in every truest of senses, 

My sweetest of ever afters.