Open the Gate

When we met, the world was different and we were different in it. 

You had a life growing inside you and I felt as if I was the walking dead. Standing there on borrowed time waiting for it to run out. 

Your face seemed sad but had a glimmer of hope. Was it due to the baby you were yet to bare to the world? Was it the temporary respite you'd receive from the humdrum of work? Was it something else? 

You were younger, still are younger, than I. Looking at the world through a lens I can never see through. That of a young mother, that of uncertainty to the life your child will lead, a clouded future blurred by past pains and fears. 

That I could relate to, being in my own cloud of pain. A pain I wanted to keep to myself lest I foist it onto another. How could I share this pain with someone who was on the brink of something so grand as motherhood? How could I bring my sorrow and doubt and fear to someone who seemed to have their own and no want of mine? 

You told me that you looked my way and I was afraid. There I was on the edge of forever one foot hanging over the edge ready to plunge and there you were throwing me a lifeline. 

You couldn't have known the depths of my sorrow, the ache in my heart. You were driven by your own ache, an ache for companionship, an ache of lust, an ache of striking out with one's feelings since our lives are short and sometimes you need to risk the heartache for a chance at a full and exacting love. 

I let my pain and my fear speak to you. I had nothing to give. No heart, no future, no will even to live. I was ready to step off that ledge but I turned and saw you standing there once more. 

A young woman, a life inside ready to meet the world, a fear in her eyes, a small smile on her face. A face that was ready to hide at a second glance. Skin that was electrified by the most innocent of touch. A heart aching for someone, a heart aching for me. 

I couldn't fathom how she could look at me and see anything but a wretch putting on airs to hide the fact that his insides were crumbling away. Decay and rot had taken hold and a smile and a laugh were but feeble veils to screen the world from that reality. 

Perhaps love is blinding, perhaps she saw and didn't care. Perhaps in a world of woes and sorrows two people full of doubt find each other to try and bring about something new and bright and warm. 

I gave you time to reconsider, to let your passions wane, to let myself decide if living was what I wanted, if life was worth the pain. 

You had the child, he was beautiful, is beautiful like his mother. 

I held you before I held him. In my arms, in my heart. 

I wanted to show you and myself that life could be better if we let it be better, if we made it be better. 

You often spoke about not being good enough, how you'd end up alone. I didn't understand that thought at all. You were and are beautiful, smart, funny, determined, creative, strong willed, caring, and full of love to give those around you. 

You are also full of doubts and fears and sorrows, much like myself. But you need not hold onto those aspects when the others are so much more worth your energy. 

We have both found life renewed, even after all the bumps and bruises, cursed words, cold shoulders, and times apart. Life with another is never easy. It is full of loves and pains. 

We have both given ourselves up to one another to try and fight through that pain and fear. To find a solid ground so that we might stand together. 

You with your fears of standing alone. Me with my fears of wretchedness and death. 

We can let the world crumble below our feet or we can stand together hand in hand and build it up as one. 

The young woman I saw all those years ago has grown and become someone I'm sure she never expected she'd be. Strong, resilient, driven, ambitious. 

You are more than your pain, your fears, your doubts, your failures. You are so much more. 

I can't claim to always see it, when I can't see past my own failures. But I hope that you can. I hope that you can see yourself the way you deserve to be seen. 

I love you and I'm sorry. For being a wretch when you met me, for being a man with embedded doubts and fears about himself and the future. A man who was ready to step off the edge, that you unknowingly brough back from the brink. 

You are worth the world.