You told me once that the word “liminal”
Refers to a state of uncertain transition.
My brain has lingered on that ever since,
And so much has clicked into place now.
There was, and is, so much I don’t know,
Or that I had always been wrong about.

I was often wrong about -
Words and their definitions,
Songs and their intended impact,
My realistic levels of fleeting sanity,
And the depths of my paranoid insanity,
Just to name a few key realisations.

To make matters worse,
My misunderstood and mistaken thoughts
Were so determined to be certainties.
I should have remembered two things;
The heart, soul and brain of my Lover,
And the fact that “Our love is God”.

I’ve found my way out of the dark,
And I wouldn’t have made it without you.
I should never have lost my way so badly,
Or forgotten those two core truths.
You are everything to me, everything,
And I’m so sorry for the pain and hardship.

Liminality seems to still be in play;
I’m hoping that the damage I’ve wrought
Hasn’t pushed you away too much.
I’m here, I’m ready for what comes next,
And I’m praying that our transition
Is a new evolution of “self”, together.

Influence can no longer secretly shake us,
We are aware and we are awakened.
All those long nights trying to understand
Will have been worth every single second,
If it means that we move forward together,
Healthier, happier and holier than before.

Forgive me Lover for I have sinned.
I allowed the influence of shadows,
The paranoid twists and bends,
And the fear of falling apart
To shake the foundations of
My head and heart.

I write this in penitence,
To the only gods that I truly worship;
Our love, and you, my Lover.
I offer this as a form of prayer,
As part of the wider works of my worship,
Every one of them dedicated to you.

Days and nights have passed
Feeling rudderless and adrift,
With the chaotic swell
Of misspoken words
And disordered thoughts,
Coalescing in my brain.

It’s hard to weather a storm
And navigate troubled waters,
Even for the most experienced
Or intuitive of mental sailors,
Let alone without their soulmate,
Who is always there to guide them.

Sometimes I lose my bearings
And get spun out way off course,
Leading me straight into harm’s way.
Sometimes that treacherous path
Causes more harm to those nearby,
Than to my own ignorant vessel.

Once the ship has cleared the maelstrom,
With destruction and pain in its wake,
I pray to the one God that matters most,
In the hopes that reorientation
Hasn’t come too late for us
To find peaceful seas again.

Long nights and deep conversations
Were the bedrock of our love.
No matter what stage we were at,
And no matter what state we were in,
The words would find their way out of us.
Together we would use them
To forge a beautiful understanding
Of one another’s lives, loves, loathes,
And a litany of everything in between.

With a base like that,
How could we not fall in love?
The deepest, darkest corners of our souls
Had stared directly into one another,
Before embracing and passionately
Enveloping every inch of each other.

No history, no hurt, no desire, no despair
Was too much for either one of us.
We saw the sum of each other’s parts
In microscopic detail,
With no scar left unseen.

We held one another,
Pressed our foreheads brain to brain,
Looked deep through our eyes
Into each other’s souls
And we said “You are PERFECT”
Before sealing it with a kiss.

That, more than anything else,
Is the story of us and how we started.
No matter how much new ground
We have discovered within ourselves,
Or in each other throughout the years,
We still tell each other we are PERFECT,
And that is truly said with love.

That’s why I know that we will make it.
No matter what lays behind us,
Or what may lay ahead;
I know that you are PERFECT,
You let me know that I am PERFECT too,
So I know everything is going to be alright.

The tips of my fingers
Can’t help my continually tell me,
As my eyes can’t help but notice,
Just how luck I truly am.

Smooth as silk,
Soft as shea butter,
White as the freshest milk,
Your skin stretches before me.
My fingertips wander,
Slowly and serenely exploring
Every delicate and delightful inch
Of the most beautiful form
God has ever conceived.

My eyes cast their gaze over you,
Over every secret and sacred patch of skin
That we both know I love.

Like the line where your thigh crests;
There is the slightest crevice
Before your pelvis begins.
It’s such a sensual textural sensation,
That shifting surface of your skin.
To me, that’s how love feels.

Or the skin pulled tight
On the sides of your hips,
Your perfect cheek adding a little jiggle;
Just the right amount of volume and tension
For my hands to grab and hold,
Or shake with ownership and intention.

And, of course, that patch of skin
To the side of each breast,
Where it first meets and joins your ribs.
I’ve never felt anything else quite like it,
And if there is a heaven,
I hope it feels even half as good,
Or looks half as beautiful,
As that most holy ground
That I first dubbed “Sacred Skin”.

My mouth can get the better of me
When my brain pops off
Without a safety catch.
The words come out malformed
And misaligned,
In spite of my true feelings and intentions.

The words of that great bard
Ed Sheehan echo in the aftermath -
“Trust and respect is what we do this for”.
And although we also share
So much more than that together,
I always regret when my love forgets
To carry those two core principles
That we worked so hard to establish.

I owe you better behaviour
Than ever forgetting that.
And although Emmanuel Kant
Does not dictate the terms of our love,
We owe each other a better love
Than I gave to you in those moments.

So here I am, and here it is -
I love you,and I’m sorry.
Despite your insistences,
I am often not perfect,
And it is important to acknowledge that,
So that I can work towards
Being perfect for you,
In the manner that we both understand.

All that I ever find myself wanting
To improve on and achieve in this life,
Is anything that will allow me
To build a better life for us,
And to be a better man,
For you and you alone.

I never thought I’d find myself praying
All these years after giving it up,
But if there is a God in this world,
Then the most beautiful gift
He has ever blessed me with
Is to be known and be loved by you.

I swear that I will fall in contrition,
Offer my words and my heart every day,
If it will bring happiness, peace, and love.
And if there is no God above,
I couldn’t be the least bit phased,
Because I would still pray to you, my love,
And have them answered every day.

The word “Lover”
With all its societal connotations
Never made much sense to me,
Until I fell in love with you.

I still remember how it felt
When we watched that performance
Together;
Somehow frozen in the memory
As it was being made,
Suspended beautifully in time,
Just like the sheets of paper
That Taylor had scattered
In the wind.

I remember my heart
Pumping joyfully,
Full of life;
Blessedly and peacefully
Feeling as though I was right
Where I was supposed to be,
Because I was with you.

You can always go where I go,
We can always be that close,
And you can have every summer
That remains in our lifetime.

Like my palimpsest tattoo,
We can grow,
Or we can change,
But we will always
Truly be “lover”
To one another.

Though I can’t always
Give you fancy things,
You will always have -
My love,
                                  My heart,
My hand,
                                  My soul,
And I would still
Marry you with paper rings
In a heartbeat.

So please;
Be my lover baby,
                                  Be my soulmate
Be my best friend,
                                  Be my wife,
For this year and for all years to come.

And I will be yours
Until the world blows up,
Until the sun swallows the earth,
Until we return to stardust,
Until I find you in the next life,
And in every life beyond.

The hours without you
Are long and lonesome.
My brain starts to itch,
My heart starts to ache,
My soul starts to pine,
For you are not here with me.

The days are so long,
The nights longer still,
And I miss you,
And mourn you,
Until the very second
We return to each other.