If You Are Worth Loving
by Kelley Ann Hornyak
(www.Kelley-Online.com)

If you are worth loving,
you will not disappear when I need you the most.
That’s been the theme. That’s now my criteria.

When it rains, you seem taller; more protective.
You’ll become my umbrella if there’s no ceiling overhead.

I don’t get lost in the fear that you might break me
when I’m at my most fragile, because even though you can,
I know with certainty you never would.

I am an integral, irreplaceable part of your world,
but I’ll never be the whole of it.
There are other people, other places, other passions
that fill your days and nights with faith and light.

When I am lost in myself, you talk me through it,
but you don’t force me to seek the light that blinds me.
You take it slow and coax me out with understanding.

Most of all, when I choose to shine,
you don’t block the spotlight
or shut your eyes.
You just smile in the glow
and fill with pride.

If you are worth loving,
this is why.

True love is soul-deep. It is when you know that the person you have chosen to live your life with is completely enmeshed with you. It’s cleaning them up when they are sick just as gently and tenderly as you would clean yourself. It’s fighting until dawn and then rolling back over and embracing because you feel physically ill from the idea of sleeping while still angry. It’s catching a glimpse of them in the moonlight from across the room and knowing, deep down, that the person you are looking at is a part of you and always will be.