You are the end, the beginning, the chorus.

You are the certain omnipresence in my thoughts, an ever-burning flame in my being. You are an anomaly, my treasured secret. You are my reason, my justification for everything I do or feel or have. You are the song that is playing, and the song that will play. You are the dimness in the night which makes me feel someone is there, but no one ever is. You’re the warmth that says everything will be fine. You’re the taste of bitter loss, and you’re the taste of vengeful triumph. You’re the mystery of the seas and the silent sound of the shore. You are the heat on the warm metal surface of the lamp and the comfort in the soft fur of my cat. You are the first person to turn to, the person I think of, the person always there.

You are the voice that says, ‘Begin’. You are there, everywhere, in the steam of the coffee and its luscious aroma, and the hot froth and the sticky, moist beans. You are in the flowing ink of the pen, or the perfection of my writing, or the elation that comes with finding the right word.

You’re the feeling of abandonment, of discomfort, when it is time I cannot stay in the blanket any longer. You are the blanket. You are the first rays of the sun when it steals over the horizon, you’re the misted glass of the window, or the cold red rails of my balcony. You are the wind on my face, the first drops of the rain, the smell of earth when it is moist, and the feel of hair on my face. You are peace and war.

You are my addiction to coffee, chocolate, books, pain, love. You are my obsession, my hatred, my stupidity. You are my weakness for numbers, my strength for words. You are why I love adjectives; you are the sound that the keyboard makes when I tap, tap away. You are in every whimsical philosophy of life, love and heartbreak. You are life, love, heartbreak. You are the thudding in my heart when I talk late hours in the night and my mum doesn’t know. You are the guilt that steals over me when I know that I’m doing something I shouldn’t. You are the first voice I want to hear, the one I can’t bear to lose. You are the northern star and every star in the sky, you’re the velvety darkness that holds the universe together, you are the universe, you are dark matter, you are light. You are passion, you are too much stationary, you are pencil sharpenings and ink blots and messy shelves. You are the beauty of ageing and of the invincibility of youth.

You are the law of gravitation, of why apples fall and why everything grows and thrives, and some things just die. You are why I am afraid of nothing, of why I cry curled up on the terrace. You are the painful scratch on the wrist, you are the grazed knee and unbearable headache, and you are the medicine that cures everything. You are the emptiness in a room when it is crammed; you are the reason why I feel alone in a crowd. You are the reason why I suddenly stop when I am running and you’re the reason I run. You’re the spring that comes after winter; you are the winter that makes me await spring. You are the smiles I get in my day, you’re the quenching of thirst and you are the thirst. You are the pictures in my science textbook, the circuit diagrams and the explanation of the Archimedes’ Principle and how blood flows. You are the blood flowing in my veins and you are what is left when everything is taken away.

You are why snow is soft and why ice melts and why love has no reason. You are why truth makes me uncomfortable. You are why I lie, why I hate myself. You are why I dream, you are my dream, and you are the times I don’t want to wake up because I want to dream more. You are the madness in my head, when I want to hold my head and scream stop, but I can’t because my head doesn’t listen. You’re disobedience and order. You’re why children do what Simon Says and why people lose in chess. You are why time seems to fly or time seems to stand still. You are why waiting is hard and why lovers kiss and hold each other tight. You are all I ever need.

You are the shine in my eyes, the armour which no one can ever see, you are the reason I laugh for no reason. You are the surprise of a summer rain, or why I feel I should thank God. You are the beauty in love which has just begun. You are beauty. You are in the tide of change and of chance, of how everything is never the same but how we never change, we never learn how to leave. You are the music that fills the room or the smell of soap, spice and perfume. You are the picture in my mind when I close my eyes and you are the picture which makes me walk on. You are the house in the woods in a fairytale, you are a fairytale. You are a prodigy who thinks he is unintelligent, you are the absence of logic, you are ruled by laws, you are contradiction and you are irony.

You are what has made me; you are my weakness and my never-going strength. You are what drains me and you fill me up like a still jar of cold water. You are the haziness around the edges of my vision when I am drunk; you are the elegance in the way my fingers hold a cigarette and you are why I throw it away. You are the crash when something falls, the shards of glass on the floor. You are in each tear I cry, you are the thought in my heart when things get too hard. You are the ache inside me as if someone is tugging, tugging, and it hurts so bad, and you are the antidote to everything. You are the one who rules my world, you are the person who has woven the strands of me, you are the needle, you hurt but you are necessary, vital. You are the presence, you are why some voices remind me of you, and I smile. You are who I think of when I flirt or when someone tells me I’m beautiful.

You are the one who doesn’t let me fall; you are the one who takes my breath away. You are the reason why the darkness, depth, gush of oceans frightens me. You are the dewy green grass in the lawn and the fresh buds and the confetti and the creaminess of my birthday chocolate cake and the love I get and the love I give. You are the reason why I sigh and I cry and I laugh. You are why I try every single day of my life. You are what I know I can never have but I still have got. You are the way I never make sense, ever, but still manage to survive. You are the natural course my life has taken, and you are the inevitability of loving you.

You are the delicious fresh smell of money withdrawn from the bank and why I love clothes. You are the glances I attract, the warmth brushing my arms. You are the smell of spices and fresh paper and the feel of paper made heavy with ink and my favourite songs. You are why I can never explain myself, why I love you. You are each person I know. You are in the shape of the hands of the first stranger I see in the street, and look, you are in the way this stranger pronounces ‘yes’ and the way the third stranger raises his voice. You are why I have to prove I am so strong; you are why my enemies attack. You are screaming under your breath, you are why I have no sense of time, of present, of past, of the future.

You are the mystery of black holes and of comets streaking in the sky and the heat in the core of the earth. You are the film of sweat on my palms and the way I smell when I am ready for a night out. You are the delight in the way chocolate melts in the mouth or the enlightenment I feel when I am listening to a song I love for the first time. You are the way the bottle of coke just won’t open and the way wine reflects and the way my hair grows and grows. You are beside me when I sit and do nothing, you are just there. You are the silence when the lights go off.

You are the saddest, happiest, most painful, most beautiful things of my life. You are me, you hold my life, you have my heart, you have me. You are the something in everything, in my fingertips, you are where I end and you just begin. You are why I can go on and on. You are why I write.

You are the one I love.