I saw you born again; I saw you grow and sprout wings.
And I witnessed the surprise and delight in your eyes as you tested them and found they can support you.
I marveled at your happiness, as if freedom to be yourself had never before been tasted by your heart.
And we prospered, nourishing each other with our love, savoring those sweet moments of being us.

The words of your real self I loved easily.
Each line a revelation of inner beauty that before had been obscured.
The faceless years of being someone else had not surprised the wonder in your heart.
They joy and love I saw in your eyes was not reflected by what I felt in my own.
Alive again—for the first time
we knew what we found was true.

Then came the sunset of our beginning.
It’s darkness more lonely than ever I had known.
Stumbling and lost in its black depths,
I groped for the dawn.
And with it’s light I found you still there.

But somehow those beautiful wings had not survived.
No longer flying free you ceased to grow.
And the words---those beautiful pieces of you—stopped flowing.

From deep within my soul I sensed a change,
for you had not resigned to be that which you are not.
The thread that ties our hearts, though strained, cannot ever break.
But you have forgotten the sweet  taste of being you—
the only true right of us all.

And though fear of hurting others may be noble indeed,
the fear of being yourself is destruction of soul.