A cowboy once said, “You know more than you speak, and I speak more than I know.”

I see myself in characters on the movie screen, on the printed page. I find a little of myself in every piece of art, every entertainment, high to low. Sometimes in heroes, sometimes in villains, always in a key (if not highlighted) role.

Looking back, I have yet to find you in those stories. A bit here, perhaps, and a hint there, but no muse has ever inspired a character quite you. The songs I hear don’t wrap the feelings in the right words, don’t wrap the right feelings in words. The daydreams inspired by movies and comic book arcs don’t hold the grandeur that I feel laying next to you, wondering if this is real, if I’m dreaming, why I am so lucky.

“It seemed natural,” you purred sleepily.

For all the changes, for all the holes in me that your luminescence uncovers, I am fulfilled, or perhaps at peace. Knowing that — no matter what else comes — I was not wrong all the years, determined to believe that my waking dream existed. And if the most unbelievable and romantic can come to pass, can be found in the material world, hand in hand with sunlight and open eyes, then nothing else that I can imagine is impossible; anything and everything is out there, waiting to be discovered with patience and open eyes and a heart filled with belief.

What a wonderful world, I think to myself. So the song goes…