Bare reflections. in The First Life

Every day is blending into the last.
Dreams vivid and on repeat.
Something about world ending.
Over and over.
My eyes are heavy, always.
Hours slip by and it’s never enough.
I count minutes until I can get to know him again.
I make plans for a home that isn’t mine yet.
Everything is in place but far in the future.
I’ve always been impatient.
I’m terrible at waiting.
I think about what color I’ll paint the door.
Digging holes in the yard for plants I’ve kept inside all year.
Of where my friends will sleep if they stay.
And whether he will ever stay.
I just want to share my sleep.
Let our tired eyes rest and wake together.
I’ve only known it once and I miss it so terribly.

I keep watching us in the kitchen.
Like I’m the person on the outside of the window I was both afraid of, and exhilarated by.
My mind racing with thoughts of turning off the light.
Drawing the blinds.
But I did not.
I let my heart take flight.
Let my muscles tense and I watch him turn me.
Staying vulnerable and letting go of the past as his hand comes around my chest, up my neck, into my hair.
I pause, swallow hard, as his palm passes my throat.
That feeling once reserved for terror, I’m letting go of, letting myself feel something else.
I trust him naturally, instinctively.
The shadows of dread long staining my vision and ability to let go, are slowly fading.

He tells me every single day how pretty he thinks I am, how beautiful he thinks I am.
On days I wear little makeup he tells me even more.
Takes note of my bare eyes and skin and looks closely.
And slowly, the person I see in every reflection is changing.
No one has ever said the things he takes care to
I find myself tending less to how I look and more to feeling myself.
I have forgotten my pills for days and didn’t realize.
Still smiling and inspired and light.

And it isn’t that I needed someone to make me any of these things.
That I am only happy because of him.
But having someone help you see the good in yourself changes a lot.
He takes me by the hand and leads me to every mirror.
Brushing back my hair, and somehow painting me in his light.
Connecting every freckle like I’m a piece of art.
I feel unafraid and bare.
He has taken the time to make sure I feed myself.
Make sure I am not scared to leave the house.
He shows me that I am delicate but strong.
That I am capable, and even being so, it’s ok to need help.

I spent time building my own foundation, learning about who I am, knowing what I need and deserve. I was so used to building solid walls to weather storms when I should have been letting someone else help me tear them down.
I worked to become the best version of me that I could…
It’s weird to have built myself up so high only to have someone else take me higher.
It’s something I never realized in myself.
That I was always building to withstand, never building to become more.