I breathe out
and inhale you in
sweet white oxygyn
reaching upward
through my nostrils
traveling to my depleted lungs
I drink you up
first in small scared sips
and then I'm gulping
the warm kindness
the authentic core-coating love
that I have only found one other time
in my mother's eyes
that has been there, this whole time
a devotion that demands tears
I let you own me
You wrap your tired arms around me
they've been trying for these five torn years
and you finally feel another human being
in that embrace
Your body like a blanket
covering me
finally allowed to protect me
from the harm I had created so wickedly for myself,
a *******, paralyzed in life
I surrender from all of this pain
conforming under your skin
allowing all that makes you so
incredible

"Five years," you say
and today begins
the first day our love is truly

shared.