When the Lights Go Out

Who are you, when the lights go out?  When the world turns to face the other way, does your face stay the same?

I scramble to pick up the broken pieces of my life, avoiding their sharp edges.  I do this when the world faces me and when it doesn't.  One day you came along, stooping down, hands outstretched, ignoring the scratches my shards carved ino your hands as you picked them up.  And somehow, your touch did what mine could not.  Your warm, strong hands binded the pieces back together.

You held the puzzle of my life out to me, your simple but handsome face encouraging and safe.  I began to feel...different.  But in a good way.

I just hope it will stay that way.

I hope that you're not like the others I've met, the ones who held me together until no one was watching.  The ones who, the very second the world seemed pleased, dropped my pieces and caused more to break.

But as I look into your understanding and comfortable gaze, I see something I have not seen before.  Concern, help, and someone who sincerely loves me, despite all my pieces. 

I lightly touch the fragments you've somehow made whole, and realize there is more to it than before.  There a new pieces, your pieces, pieces that fill the holes between my own.  We hold this new globe together, our two tender hands just enough.

That's it, then, the answer.   Your fitting pieces, your capable hands, your protecting eyes.  I can trust you.  Because you are you when the lights go out.