Stand

In a lonely life, these Words have been my only constant companions.
They have never failed me.
They have never deserted me.
And they have stood between me and a world that would tear, and scrutinize, and cage.

These Walls I’ve built are strong.
They are thick and high.
Not one has ever attempted to scale these peaks.
Not one has even desired to force a way through.

But now, here you Stand.
Here
Before me
You Stand.
And my Words fall short.

You Stand.
And everything else falls,
And my Walls come tumbling down,
And my Words fall short.

And I wonder what happened to my Walls.
I marvel at how you managed to walk through them
As if they didn’t even exist.
And at how, like some impossible apparition,
Here before me
You Stand.

You Stand.
And I see that you have always been here.
When I built these Walls, you were there.
And I mixed your light into the mortar,
And I set your warmth into every stone,
So that now they radiate with an incandescent glow,
And even my bitter tears blaze like precious gems.

You have always been part of them,
These Walls.
You have always been inside them.
In all my life,
In all my deepest longings,
In all my truest and most shining moments,
In all these things,
There were echoes, whispers, of you.

And now here
Before me
You Stand.
You Stand guard outside my Walls
And within them.
And you are my Walls.
And you are strong and wise and good.

And my Words fall short.
And you Stand.
And everything falls,
And my Words fall short,
And my Words fall short.

You Stand.
And everything else Stands around you.
And everything wakes, and grows, and is eternal.
And everything is beginning again, and always was, and will never be the same.

You Stand.
And everything else falls.
And my Words fall short.
And you Stand.
You
Stand.