Sometimes, we find ourselves looking at the one we adore and instead of sharing what’s spinning through our mind, we remain closed and alone with our thoughts.

We keep our feelings safely tucked away in ribbon-laced pockets and securely stored in padlocked, antique chests.

But, what are we so petrified of? Rejection, abandonment, denial? And if so, wouldn’t we rather know how the person we hold affection for truly feels about us?

In reality, we cannot possibly lose. If we think we’ll lose because we show love, then really, that person was never meant to be ours to begin with.

When love is in play, there is no such thing as a loss. Authentic love continues to subtly love on, from a distance, regardless of whether it’s returned, appreciated, or accepted.

Therefore, it’s time to silence that noisy, anchoring ego, as that heart of ours is drowning in love. It’s time to take the deepest breath, surface from the suffocating water, courageously pry the heart open, and share what’s fearfully hiding inside.

True beauty is not visual. It is not seen, but felt. It is an essence. A vibe. A reflection of a person’s soul.

For the one I sense beauty in:

~

I realized today that I have never told you quite how beautiful you are.

I have never explained the softness I see in the ocean-color of your eyes, the seduction held in the slightest movement of your lips, or how the tenderness of your voice shakes me alive.

I am terrified at times. I often don’t know how to love or move you, and though there are a million or more ways I could show you, I stumble and never seem to find the right words to say.

I struggle to describe exactly what your beauty does within me.

I am blurred when you’re around. Mesmerized, hypnotized, and irrevocably lost at times.

So, I instinctively pull back, contract, and attempt to mask my overfull heart.

I’m tied up in complicated knots with you, and I can hardly make sense of it all, although my heart is open and fearlessly brave when I’m with anyone else.

But you are different—someone I’m not sure I’ll ever understand.

I often can’t breathe when I look at you. Your existence tears me up in the most exquisite way, yet I have somehow forgotten to let you know that you are ridiculously, achingly beautiful, through and through.

I have forgotten to tell you exactly what it is that you do.

I haven’t told you how the thought of my fingertips slowly tracing your spine keeps me awake, haunting every hour of the night.

I haven’t let you know about the sensation that arises in my bones as I watch you tell me about your day, and you come to me and pull me in close.

I wish I’d told you more often that the tinted glow of your skin after 3 a.m. pleasure only makes me yearn for you more.

I never did tell you that when the morning sun creeps through the cracks in the windowpane, the outline of your body torments me into silence and keeps the words I want you to hear contained.

I haven’t explained how the mischievous kinks in your hair, the gentle pressing of your hips, and the pulse beating through your chest cause hurricanes to collide and temporarily paralyze me.

Or that I adore the flickering of your tired eyelashes at the end of a long, loved-fueled night, and how your coy, crooked smile halts time and melts my mind.

I am enchanted by your rebellious soul, how your fire distorts and disturbs my world.

But I have been afraid to be vulnerable, so I conveniently forgot to let you know that your raw, devastating beauty has ruined me for anyone else.

Inside and all the way through, exactly as you are, you are beautiful to me.

I am sorry that it took me until now to let you know.

 

Author: Alex Myles

Image: you me/Flickr

Editor: Nicole Cameron