When I first met him, I knew it was different.  Before being in love, having heard that, I wouldn't make any sense of it.  But I think being in love opens up the door to a whole other language.  All those cliche metaphors make perfect sense.  At first, I only let my light shine through.  He loved  the sun, so sunlight is all I beamed.  My hair was often messy, but as far as he knew, my insides were clean.  Pure.  I didn't point out my flaws, or bring up my insecurities.  Instead, I boasted everything I loved.  He saw no flaws in me.  I was healing... I could feel that, but healing doesn't equate to being healed.  To him, I was a perfect girl.  The deeper I fell, the harder it was to remain picture perfect.  Emotions were filling my insides, emotions I had never known.  The optimistic, always cheerful, pretty girl, slowly dwindled.  While we were apart, he would always ask how I was.  I'd swallow the tears and bite my tongue. 
Slowly, that facade became harder and harder to hide.  I began to unravel, like a story book being ripped apart.  It started out with, "I'm sad today, but I don't know why," when really, those days became too hard to hide, although I often tried.  His shoulder was always there for me, despite if I wanted it to be or not.  I felt myself losing that image, that perfect girl he fell for, and that thinking process drove my spiral downward even faster.  He knew me, better than I thought.  He would know if I was okay by a simple hello, or a delayed response.  I was vulnerable, susceptible....my heart was his, but my mind was constantly shouting how his heart wouldn't, couldn't, be mine, not for long anyways.  Especially with all of my paint chipping off.... but he saw me.  A naked body, naked soul.  I tried so hard to run from the sadness inside of me, to not expose who I really was, but he pulled me tighter, unfolding me.  I felt I was too much... too sad, too big of a burden.... I didn't want him to suffer, watching me suffer, but he didn't see it that way.
As months went by, the sadness in me began to dwindle.  It dwindled in such drastic ways I even thought I must be hiding it.  But no, I saw myself getting better.. I'm still getting better.  His fights for me, for us, saved me.  My soul has been stripped for him, I've become completely raw for him, and him only.  To the world, he thinks he is no one, but to me, he is so much more than my someone...  He lets me lay on his chest and cry, while encouraging me to let it out, and I know it's okay.  He lets me whisper in his ear, when my voice is too shaky to project.  He looks as me like his favorite painting, always with admiration.  His hands hold me as if I'm the china vase his family has been passing down for years.. And when I cry, he listens like his favorite song, quiet, but filled with ardor.  He sees the girl, under the painting.  The paint has stripped away from me, from him, and I'm happy for that.