There was a time before you, I think.

A time when I would dedicate word after word to recreating the crushing heaviness of loneliness, pour all my metaphors into the hideous beast called Isolation, write endlessly about how sleep was Death's closest relative and the only thing that could save anyone from feeling alone. A time when love was not a buoy but an anchor, impossible to think about while still keeping my head above the mighty river. I did not think at all, but wrote instead.

One day you were written into the shadows.

I saw echoes of you in the words on the page, little glimpses of you in certain syllables, in the way I felt certain words. You were hidden in my scrawl and I pretended not to notice. What did it matter if I was ascribing warmth to the creases of your eyes or beauty to the arch of your back? These were small things. Poetic devices. I still wrote about loneliness – even if the remedy was written into your smile. You were still just a concept.

Then suddenly, you were everything.

I wrote about your skin underneath my fingertips, the precise correlation between your laughter and the rhythm of my heart, your breath on my neck. Of all the ways I wanted you. There was no more isolation except in the gaps where you did not exist, pauses as short and as frightening as desperate gasps for air. You were screaming out from every page and I could not ignore you any more.

Now there is nothing but you.