Like Daniel's Gift, this is something Amber wrote to me as a Christmas gift. For the same reasons, I am sharing it here.
Daniel
Thoughts swirling in my heart
rattling my rib cage to get out to you.
I don't know if they will find words but I must try;
my soul is about to burst through my skin.
I'm shaking.
I can feel you.
You finally found your way through.
Welcome home.
That just came out without thinking then,
but I've been thinking about it ever since.
Something is happening to me,
has happened,
which lights me up
and scares the breath out of me
at the same time.
Some may look at the surface only
and call it being in love.
They're probably right, but it's also
different, deeper by far.
You were the first person to truly show me
I am beautiful and desired,
not broken and worthless
but whole and valuable beyond measure.
I treasured up those things and kept them in my heart
like the mother Mary.
I used the knowledge to struggle free.
And I climbed through a canyon
to get back to you.
Thanksgiving.
I heard you and I called.
So glad I did.
I shudder to think what the world almost lost;
what I almost lost.
At first, I told myself that the subsequent daily calls
were just to check on you.
But I quickly realized that they have become the best part of my day;
the part that really matters.
Your voice and words are food to me.
Your laughter is a candy
which I crave with an intensity
that surprises even me.
To be able to talk about everything or nothing
weightless
is one of the most amazing things
I have ever experienced.
I have recently become aware that everything I do,
even things I love, has an ache under it,
because I want to, long to, share it with you.
I want you to be there when I nail a song the first time I sing it,
when I take Jax out at poker, because I will not let her bluff me twice.
When the wind makes me alive.
When a dream makes me cry.
I want to be there when you go to sleep
singing in your ear
so that you know I will be there when you wake up.
I want to feel your heartbeat with my hand,
to see how shadows change your face.
I want to release my own energy into your soul.
I want, for one moment, to feel my soul lost
inside your cells,
carrying valuable things,
giving you life.
But mostly I want to know everything.
Your answers to the questions,
big and small.
Learning something new every single day.
I know this is strong, and maybe scary.
It shakes me too.
But it has become a necessity
to tell you what I really feel.
I'm not sad, so don't feel bad if you are not in the same place on the path.
I will gladly stand here forever even if you never join me.
Aching is just a wind inside the soul.
It makes me feel alive.
Just know that I'm grateful.
And I love you.
And you are worth more than all the pages
in all the books I could and might write
could ever say.
For if home is truly where the heart is,
then you have given me my first safe and real home.
And that's a gift no one will ever be able to throw away or destroy.