The art of your sorcery lies quiet on my skin

It follows on the coat-tails of courage, the gentle unfurling of life as you open yourself to hope and possibility. To know of the possibilities of hurt, and to stand alone and proud and say This is me, I have some broken places, and I’m scared and I don’t know how to do this but I’m opening myself to hope, to dare to dream, to you. It takes valour and heart to stand shaking and vulnerable, holding your heart in your hands and say ‘this is all I have. It contains my memories, my hopes and dreams and deepest desires. Take it and use it wisely.’ It’s an offering of yourself, demanding no promises in return.

I am not perfect. I am all too often a contradiction. I punctuate fevered conversation with ostentatious silences. I swear too much, though with impeccable pronunciation. I never look where I’m going and have been known to take four hours to walk 500 yards. I’m often difficult, temperamental and HUNGRY for a life that’s brimming over with inspiration. I’m complicated, tumultuous and liable to capsize every now and then. I yearn for a life where I fit in, and know I will never make the compromise to myself to achieve it. If I am a minefield to navigate, it is because you stumble in the places I hold myself back.

It is these shared moments that are worth every risk and ragged breath. Life transforms us until the outlines of the sure-footed are fuzzy with hope, and the ethereal dreamers stand firm and demand recognition. We stand, somehow fitting together in the most perfect of ways. We always did. Somehow you take the wildness that lives inside me and soothe it until it arches under your touch like a satisfied cat: tamed and gentle.

Fleeting moments pass in breathless laughter and the weaving of beautiful words. I find myself compelled by your voice and it’s all I can do not to close my eyes and let the words wash over me, gentle as a caress. Quiet as a whisper, I can feel the echoes of a distantly-remembered past rippling through my mind and my heart blooms like a flower and I am helpless to hold back.

I take all I am and place it in your hands. If life is an evolution, I am ready for this. Your words are lifted gently from your lips and your pen and lie quietly upon my skin, drawn upon me in invisible lines. Your alchemical words transform me in the light of your vision. I can never be the same, will never want to go back. Through your eyes, I have become a work of art.