.awake.

At times, I wonder what the real difference is between waking and sleeping.

The dreary monotony of my days lately brings these questions to the surface of my mind...the restless dreams of slumber do not have disparity with the constant rush of my days...all seems alike to this insatiable heart.

The moments when the sweet and wonderful differences are clear are those that stay permanently stamped in my memory...they popped out from the dull gray exterior like colorful 3D shapes that wrapped themselves around my weary mind and helped me to see that, oh, there is something that makes sleep the enemy, someone who I want to stay awake for...and he, oh, he makes all the difference between waking and sleeping.

I could wile away my days, legs wound tightly against my chest, deep in sleep...and when he is gone, yes, I do wish that I could hit the fast forward button by sleeping away the weeks that are void of his touch...

But when I see that familiar gleam in his green eyes, run my hand over the beautiful shadows on his jaw...then, I remember, through those feelings, what it means to truly be awake...a thousand jolting feelings flood my heart, my eyes, my lips...all pour out this all-encompassing feeling of love to him.

He is the one that keeps these eyes open, searching for the key to unlock the door that holds the meaning of awake...the one that keeps me from longing for sleep to forget the repetitive days...the one that shows me what it really means to be alive...and awake.

I will stay awake for him. For all time.

.never want to escape.

My heart just told me that it is lonely tonight, and will remain so until you are here again.

I am captured in time, frozen with the feelings of a pure, unadulterated love upon my face...I cannot and will not forget the brush of our first kiss nor the bliss I feel when you and I chase the sunshine down the road nor any other memory you and I have made together...you are utterly unforgettable.

I will not move from this feeling. I will not escape from this all consuming love, this driving force that slumbers deep inside my heart even when my mind is forced to focus on other areas.

No one can break me away from these chains that I so willingly bear that tie me to your love, your heart...though the distance is far, I would gladly bear much more if only to see your loving eyes upon mine for a moment.

I cannot escape you! How bold it is of me to say it, but just writing it down solidifies how truly it resonates within me...I know this feeling just as surely as I know anything. And the most freeing part of this permanent hold you have on me (to be ironic) is that I could never want anything more than this feeling.

It is the sweetest feeling in the world, to be so utterly entwined in you that there is no other way to live...if you cut me away from the vine that is you, I will shrivel and fold in on myself, curling up to die in a desperate and loveless existence. Without you here, I am slowly but surely fading...the color fades from my eyes and the sparkle that you incite seems to be lost.

But it is temporary, my love, for I know that upon seeing you again, my eyes will shine and overflow with the love that I have kept so deep inside this aching soul. I will fly to you and you shall look deep in my eyes and see that you cannot escape me any more than I can evade you.

.breathe in.

My throat felt constricted today, leaving me visibly breathless as I struggled to push the thoughts of your looming absence out of this clouded head.

Even the most arbitrary tasks like breathing seem painful and drawn-out when you aren't here...with your hand in mine, I inhale and exhale with the greatest ease, savoring the sweet feeling of air in my lungs.

But oh, have I mentioned how unstable my days are without you? Your hands may just seem like just another part of your body to you, but they quite literally hold me together...without you, I fall to pieces, grasping at the crumbling foundation of my purpose as I descend into the throes of the melancholy.

But the reuniting is always so sweet, my love...feeling your embrace again for the first time is intoxicating...I cannot get enough of your touch, your look...and you always leave me panting, begging for more.

Tonight, my chest aches upon the blunt realization of your apparent absence. This heart is struggling to beat its way out of its constraints to escape across the miles to lie next to you tonight. I wish to break free from these chains that tie me to this dismal city so that I can breathe easy in your soothing presence.

Waiting is such sweet sorrow...the parting, it is just dull, dull sorrow. The separation has a silver lining, for I do fall deeper and deeper into this passionate love I have for you with each passing day. But oh, I pray it does not last much longer...

I cannot breathe without you here.

.tonight.

Focusing is increasingly hard without your constant hand to hold on to.

Without your strong grip encasing my sometimes feeble hand, I feel lost, desolate, confused...that is, until I hear that wonderful voice pouring across the distance and seeping into my very being, making me feel so very alive once again.

Without you, the spark in my eyes flickers and goes out quietly, ever more with each passing day. When you come to me again so swiftly and lovingly, the flames begin again, rushing out of my very fingertips with the heat emanating from my very core.

This love that drips ever so softly from my eyes from time to time is only for you. This love that always cascades from my lips when I speak of you is only for you. This love that hides behind my closed eyes at night...it is only for you.

This beautiful, bold, unpredictable love sleeps inside me throughout the day, always winding its way around my heart and infusing itself in my very breath. I breathe in your love with each gasp of these lonesome lungs, and I know that soon you will constantly be by my side, singing over me and filling this tired heart with overflowing joy.

I will rush to you with the wind and water tonight...I will lie by your side, constantly reminding you of how much I feel. Do you feel? Do you feel it with you now as you read these words that stretch across the miles to sit beside you in the depths of the night? I am hurtling across the miles, swifter than the light that tries to catch me in the black of night and soon, I will be huddled in your warm embrace once again, if only in spirit tonight.

I will fall asleep with you tonight and rest easy in the arms that I know so well. I will trace figures across your beautiful face as you fall into the depths of a dream and watch the sleep parade across your features.

I will be with you tonight because this love we have transcends all distance.

.love actually.

The whisper of your breath against my neck will float along with me always.

The gentle nuances of you...they will follow my steps, pacing slightly behind me and always hanging above me, reminding me of all that you are.

The fog drapes low over me now, clouding my eyes, concealing my purpose...I left it all behind five hours ago, and I have been consistently craning my neck to catch the fleeting glimpses of the past four days before they sink into the clouds of my fallible memory.

This insurmountable distance...I feel as if I am climbing a treacherous mountain that seems to lack any sturdy footholds...I am simply grasping at pebbles for some kind of support, rendering me doomed as I slide down the face of the crest.

Where is your strong hand, your protecting grasp, your timeless face? Hidden from view, my heart’s desire is further than these thousand miles that technically separate us now...it is strewn out in space, severed in half, blown away like the seeds of some exotic flower that I never had seen before I saw your face.

But the truth is, I did see a face...I saw a face...a face of the one that I always want to know. I want to watch that beautiful face change with the years, watch the parade of emotions that will run the gamut across your features, explore each line and crevice that will eventually crease your face with the passage of time. I want to always run my hands over the rough stubble of your strong jaw line, feeling the heat of your love pressed against my own skin as we lie entangled in a goose bump infested embrace.

I remember the smell of your shoulder, the taste of your neck, the feel of your legs against mine. How could I forget? Each memory that we have created rivals a precious relic that I never wish to slip from my grasp into the realms of the forgotten.

Where are you now? Are you dashing across the paved paths to the epicenter of the population? Do the curved dendrites spiraling out from this pulsing center of communication somehow lead me to you? The shining lights of your city seem to reach out to me, lighting the hallways in my heart that have been darkened since you took your leave. This mean city that I am tied to seems brighter when I think of your radiant presence in my life.

The feeling of the whisper of your heart against my heart will float along with me always...
Always reminding...always remembering...always creating...always growing.

It's more than just a feeling...it's love, actually.

"If you don't love somebody, it gets annoying when they tell you what to do or what to feel. When you love them you get pleasure from their pleasure, and it makes it easy to serve."
-Donald Miller

.here's to the future.

My future is so utterly beautiful now that you're in my life...do you know that?

You make my days have so much more purpose, so much more reasoning behind them...all because your love is singing over me with each step I take, each breath I breathe.

I can almost taste what it will feel like to be yours forever because I know that we will be united as one before the next three years have passed. I can nearly hear those words that we will say at the altar, nearly feel the press of your hand against mine as we leave the church as a permanent couple, nearly see the future that we are already so lovingly planning...

Every sound that comes from you is precious to me, so why would I ever want to stop listening to you? The next natural progression in our relationship is to solidify this bond that we already have in the eyes of the world, to be promised to each other forever...

And truly, I cannot wait for the day that I can proudly call myself the betrothed to someone as wonderful as you...I will be even more blessed than I already am, if that's possible.

It's just the waiting part now...I know that you love me as much as I love you. Soon, we will put a permanent stamp on that love and sail through our days knowing that we will soon be joined together forever.

.never going back to before.

Such a dark and dreary existence was mine before I knew your sweet love...

Truly, I cannot recall what pleasure or what happiness I found in those days before I first heard your beautiful voice and felt the tug of love on my heartstrings...

The meaningless tasks with which I filled my days seem now to be a part of a distant and far-removed past, a part of a place to which I never wish to return...

To go back to before I knew you...it would be terrible. Having tasted such a sweet love, now I never want to go without your soothing words, your beautiful touch, your endless care.

My days were brightened by the love of a Savior, and oh, He blessed me with a human companion as beautiful and loving as you!

Outside of my love of Him, though, I do not know what held my attention during those wearisome days without your presence.

Now that I have been given such a marvelous gift from above, I know that I will never relinquish this ownership of your heart that you have given me. I shall hold tight to this relationship...if relationship is really a strong enough word to describe what we have...it's more like a bond, an intense connection, an inseparable linking of two souls.

I shall never let go of you, my love...if you bid me farewell, I shall unwillingly let you go, and I will always keep you in my heart. I cannot and will not love another on this Earth...you have forever tainted my view of what is pure and what is lovely, because I know no one will surpass you in my eyes.

May I always see you this way...no...I will always see you this way...for you have stolen my heart, captured my soul, taken me as your own.

.marry me?.

Small glimpses of the future thrill me when I am privileged enough to see them...

Tonight, as we matter-of-factly talked about our future marriage, I was stunned with how real this is to me. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it is you that I will be walking towards down that aisle.

The details are unclear now...I do not know what church, what minister, what day or what time...all I know is that I will marry you, my love...if you'll have me.

This love I have for you knows no bounds...it does not need to be defined by human constraints, and it cannot be put into words because it is so much bigger than myself.

But marriage...oh, that is one human convention that our love will submit to! There will be no greater joy, no greater happiness to me than to be known as the bride of someone so utterly wonderful...you are so loving, so handsome, so caring...everything! It would take volumes to do you justice, and to think you have chosen me as your beloved...the feeling is matchless.

When you slip that engagement ring on my finger, it will be a marker of what I already know...my heart belongs to you and all of me will belong to you on a day quickly approaching when I tell you that I do...

Those two words will mean as much as those three words that we already have the privilege of saying...but soon, we will be able to tell each other how much we do love as husband and wife.

.love for you.

Days seem to drag without you here to hold my hand...

Memories of you keep me pushing forward towards the day that I can see your sweet face one more and let you hold me very close to your heart...you must know by now that you reside in the closest, deepest places of my heart...

Truly, you illuminate every darkened corner, every desolate corridor in my heart...it is all for you.

When I met you, my heart was an empty room, begging for someone to start over with, someone to care for with every part of it. Patience gave me you, and my heart has never been happier, never sung more sweetly than it has when you're near...and really, even when you're not, I find my heart still racing, beating for you.

Our shared loves overlap so beautifully...our common interests, goals...they have all colored the walls of my heart with joy and certainty that you are indeed the one for me. The part of you that interests me the most is your heart, and since I know that you have overtaken mine, I can only hope that yours is equally stolen by me.

May we continue to love this deeply, this strongly, this passionately for the rest of our days...truly, I have dwindled away nineteen years without you, and I intend to never lose sight of your heart and your love for my remaining years.

Should such joy be mine as to be given the right to adore you for all time...no greater bliss would be known to this heart, which has metamorphosed from an empty, groaning space to an overflowing source of love and joy for you. Knowing that I now can focus my love and joy on a significant other as well as on my Savior is such a beautiful blessing from above, really, it is.

So thank you for giving me the ability to love again...but then again, it was easy, for loving you comes so absolutely natural because you are so utterly loveable.

.future.

When you are tired, please lay your head next to mine and rest.
When you feel overwhelmed, please escape into my love and feel at peace.
When you are weary, rest in my arms and let me hold you until you don't worry anymore.

When I see that you are consistently running from one place to the other, trying to get everything done, I just want to remind you that I will always be constant, no matter how tumultuous the rest of your day is.

I always want to hear your voice, always want to be the one to tell you that I love you. God is our peace, our strength and our comfort, but I strive to be another source of comfort that can be near to you as possible, even with this distance separating us.

You want such beautiful things in life...and your goals are so very admirable. It's part of the reason that I am so certain that you are the man I want to marry. You aspire to be a wonderful father and husband, and you know that there are certain areas that you don't compromise on when it comes down to it.

I want to take care of you as you wish to take care of me. I want to be your constant, your rock, the other hand that is always reaching out.

You fulfill every quality that I have ever hoped or dreamed for in a man, and I intend to stay with you for all time, if you'll have me. I was first intrigued by your wit, your charm and your adorable smile, but it is your heart that I have fallen so deeply in love with. You love me with a capacity that I thought impossible, and I know that nothing in this world would make me as happy as to have you by my side for all time...together, we will serve God and live for Him each day as we continue to grow in love and in harmony.

.a day like today.

Beautiful spring breezes whispered against my cheek this afternoon, telling me of the wonderful possibilities of today.

Something about the way the sunlight danced across the leaves and the gentle breeze that fluttered around my bare legs made my heart sing for joy for all the beauty that is in creation.

All the beauty in today was nothing compared to the beauty I see in you every day.

If you were here, it would not matter if today had been overcast and bitterly cold.
If you were here, it would not matter if I could never have ventured outdoors.
If you were here, it would be of no consequence if the sun did not shine...

But oh, if you could have been here with me today, it would have been absolutely perfect...the kind of perfection that most people never get to experience because, after all, a love like ours is something that many are not so blessed with.

If you could have been here today, we would have gone to the park with a cheap kite with some silly Disney character on it and flown it until we had gotten our fill of watching the bright colors spin against the flawless blue backdrop.

Letting the sun warm our face, we would lay back on a soft blanket and watch the clouds drift by, naming shapes as we saw them and tracing our fingers to let the other in on our artistic visions.

Our hearts are already full to the point of bursting every day, but today, the love would spill out from us, running over to pour out of our bodies through our smiles, our laughter, our absolute happiness and contentment that only comes from being in the presence of each other and of Him.