When did it become natural to wake up beside you?

 

That the crevasse you leave on what I used to call just my bed would be my ocean of your scent I’d gladly rebaptize myself in every morning as you make my cup of coffee.

 

The coffee you know I cannot begin my daily organized chaos without.

 

When did it become so natural to have a soul so complimentary yet so different mesh with my own; to have a beautiful sunset of reds, blues, and violets when seeing what is mine, yours, and ours?

 

I spent my life in blissful solitude after repetitive jeers and jabs left my fragile heart with too many cuts and not enough band aids. Wrapped in armor of bitterness, ignorance, and denial, my heart had a fortress that protected it from the romantic apocalypse that is the outside world.

 

So when did you find the keys, access code, and sledgehammer that opened the blockade? When did you pass the lake of disappointments, mazes of false expectations, and shattered stained glass of stabbing words created by broken dreams that sent others running in the opposite direction? My heart lived in a fortress as beautiful and twisted as Versailles after the French Revolution and somehow you became an Olympic swimmer, solver of logarithms, and Thor.

 

I can trust you.

 

Now my heart lives in the cup of coffee you make me every morning, the taste of bad breath that can only come from your lips, the curve of your neck that my head fits in perfectly. In the bumps and bruises of everyday life, your old tee shirts I wear to bed, the arguments I know will not break us but make us stronger. In the way our bodies move in euphoric and less euphoric tandem in every situation.

 

When did others know the long haul was awaiting? That family events became something I could miss work for, even when they are not my family yet now somehow are. When did the permanent plus one become established?

 

That you would always be that plus one.

 

We somehow created a daily life that included good mornings, afternoon phone calls, shared dinners, tv shows and beds, and goodnights all while I remained oblivious to the fact. So when did we begin? When did you embrace my tattered heart, and tattooed my skin with words like “beautiful”, “funny”, and “inspiring” so I could look upon them whenever I began to falter on the self-esteem I did not know I acquired in our time together.

 

When did I become a person, who did not push away the kindness of others. The person who wore happiness in her cloak of many colors yet was not called Joseph. When did the darkness that forever loomed over my heart dissipate to reveal there was a sun beyond the clouds. When did I build an airplane to get through those clouds?

 

When did you begin to help me build it?

 

When did you stop being the little boy I did not think would last and became the man who I could have intellectual discussions with? The man I could fight with, who knew when to let it go. The one who would lose the battle to win the war. When did you learn the way I like my coffee or the way I smile when uncomfortable? When were you able to see all the damage and why didn’t you turn away? When did you decide to stay?

 

Why did you decide to stay?

 

They use the term “fall in love” and for so long I understood what that meant but this connection of hearts does not feel like falling. My heart laid in a bed of comfort and contentedness that was lined with the curve of your smile and covered with the sheets of your affections that I finally know I deserve and yet are too good for me to deserve. You are too good for me.

 

So I stand here in selfless selfishness and accept what I can only deem as a gift, and ask you to accompany me and allow me to accompany you. For then, for now, for always, as cheesy as that sounds. Let’s take our shattered glass, mix it and make a mosaic. It will always be there and its scars will always show but it’s beautiful nonetheless. Our pain, past and present, is beautiful. Without it, we would not be who we are, you wouldn’t of found me, and I wouldn’t of loved you.

 

I ask you this because I love you.