In Spite of Everything

I think it’s the way you smile whenever you see me – I guess that’s what people mean when they say someone ‘lights up’. I should be used to it by now but, still, after all these years, every single time, it takes me by surprise that someone as remarkable as you would be so happy to see someone as unremarkable as I and possess the childlike purity of heart to so freely show it.

Or maybe it’s how genuinely good you are. It puts me to shame. There seems to be a limitless reserve of patience and kindness inside you. So kind and so tenderhearted that it must be painful to live among the rest of us – we who are prone to anger or ambition, who impulsively act on self-pity or petty jealousy while you stand there shining; oblivious that your glow makes us all so keenly aware of our own tarnish.

There are things in life that eat away your soul leaving you invisible. Of these things, I’ve had more than my share. I showed up before you like a refugee, having just weathered the worst sort of these, convinced that everything I’d ever loved about myself, which was never much in the first place, was gone. I was existing behind walls of hurt I’d allowed to entomb me. And yet, in spite of everything, somehow you saw me. You saw me and I was disarmed.

That is why I love you.

There are more handsome men. There are wealthier men too. There are men who rise to the pinnacles of power and influence, at whose command fleets drop anchor or set sail; armies advance or retreat; nations rise and fall. But there is only one man, who, sees a broken, invisible girl and ‘lights up’.

There is only one you.