The world is dark. Shadows are everywhere, they encase you in their suffocating black, and you can't defeat them, cannot win out over them, because how can you fight something that has no real form, no real substance, something that just is? They're facts of your existence, these shadows, and they will never disappear, never leave you alone, and you cannot escape.
They stop you from seeing, from feeling, from being, and everything is so very dark. No matter how often you try to pry your eyes open, to bring light into your broken and shattered soul, your efforts are always futile.
The darkness is absolute.
And then there's light – bright and flashing, warm and full, a ray of pure, unaltered beauty as it shines out amongst the black.
You gasp because you have been blind for so long, never seeing the sun, never seeing a single star, and suddenly your world is blazing in glorious sunlight, or moonlight, you don't care which, because it's there and you can finally, finally see again.
And when you find a way to open your eyes, truly open them to see this new, shining world, he is the first thing they look upon.
He's beautiful, so beautiful it takes your breath away. Blond hair swept away from cerulean eyes that dance with mirth and untold stories of the past, a wide smile of crooked teeth that beckons you and draws you in, a long nose and defined jaw that you remember so very well, that you have never, ever forgotten, for even when the darkness crushed you, you could still picture his face, and before you know it, salty tears are streaming from your eyes.
I see you, you want to say, but your voice won't work, even if your eyes do.
I feel you, you want to say, because you do, you can feel his heat and his breath and every beat of his heart even though there is space between you, too much space, and all you want to do is run at him and collapse into his arms and hold him, just hold him, for as long as you can.
I need you, you want to say, and it's true. You have always needed him, especially in these endless, trying years that have run between, and there have been too many, each one of them spent in that horrible place of darkness that you could not imagine returning to ever again now that you have found your light.
I love you, you want to say, and no statement has ever been truer.
I know you, you want to say, because it is the first thing, the very first thing, at the tip of your tongue, just itching to be screamed and yelled, or spoken quietly in a tiny, broken whisper that you know would be the only sound capable of being made by your mouth right now.
But you can't say that, because he doesn't know you.
So you stay silent, stay in the shadows, but they aren't truly shadows anymore, now that you've found your light, found your hear, found your soul, found the blood that pumps through your veins and swallows you whole, found the piece that completes your puzzle, and the black can never again reclaim you.
You have life, he breathes life into you, sets you on fire. You're ablaze and you're alive.
After so many years of being dead, his return has brought you back to life.
You're so alive that it's painful, your heart is going to explode out of your chest, and it's everything you could have ever hoped for. You ache, you throb, you're destroying yourself from the inside out, but you don't care because there he is, as whole as you, and although he doesn't know you, you know him, and for now, that's enough.
That's enough.
