He woke me. Coated by all that life discarded during the years that I slept. All that time I’d thought I’d died.

He woke me, brushing away all of it. Clearing the death and darkness, beseeching me to show him more. Show him everything. The debris was often belligerent, as I seemed to cling to it in despair. But, beneath the detritus, he quickly found color. Beneath the crumbling wood, he found polished marble. Beneath the flaking mud, he found painted tiles, creating a masterpiece of art and form and beauty.

He woke me, bringing joy and life to the abandoned halls that pleasure had long forgotten. The magic of his love doesn’t seem to know a benediction. The hope within him gleans a future within me that has never before been imagined.

He woke me. And with that debris dislodged and denatured, imagination is not needed to see. The sight of completion is everything in the eyes of a brokedown palace who had only ever hoped to be a home.

He woke me. So that HE might be free.