when you are finally healthy enough

you know it in the way air tastes.
you smile in a special way - a lot less shaky and in line with the other person's face now.
things don't feel like broken glass around your fingertips, you've been cut all your life, and you're not really scared of it anymore. a little blood. it's only a little blood.
after you experience the worst pain of your life, after all the shame, all the catastrophic bumbling, the wrong kinds of touch, the most lost you've ever been in the soft black of your mind and heart.
after all that
you crawl up and out.
you fight. i fought.
somehow, after everything i am still an entire person. i used to think that i was losing pieces of myself with every horrible year. i used to feel the gaps and deep resounding aching in every limb. days in bed, tear filled face pressed to another tired friend, another weary caretaker. i thought for a second there, that i wasn't going to be able to do this.
but then i surprised myself. and everyone who rallied like champs around this broken angry girl.
air tastes magical lately. fresh and different in each place i find myself.
i'm finding i can be proud of myself, i can look into mirrors and not cringe, i don't need a cigarette, i don't need a drink.
i found that i am healthy enough, in a wonderful state, to love someone back.
and i found him. the person i needed. he wandered into my life when i was finding daylight again. in a curious state of mind, still working through so much. but finding my feet under me for once.
he took the lumps, he kept me even after i lashed and fretted. he doesn't understand how from now on i will do everything i can to make him realize it was all worth it.
he makes me want to work hard.
think deeper.
be patient.
take care of myself.
share.
i see so much of myself in him. the dark parts, that light angry cloud that hangs around his head lately, the way his hands go to his face, grimaces and sighs. grief touches us all differently, touches some of us more often than others.
my handsome man, please, don't worry.
he is the person i needed all those horrible years, he is the supportive smile and loving arms i wanted so badly in the times when i i was ready to stop. just stop.
i got lucky. i survived long enough for him to lean down and press his lips to mine and change my entire process.
so, even better, i can be the person he needs right now.
i hope i can be.
when it's different, it just is. when it's worth it, it really is.
this place used to be where i would drag in and cry and hide.
but now, i'm working on something really special.
a real life, shared.