Oh, you save lives! Like the bedraggled guy on death row whose friends have all walked away, as he’s being led on that green-mile walk – minus Tom Hanks! He asks, “Did the governor call?” And the warden sadly shakes his head. Or, better still, the someone who was somebody once! And now he spends his days like Howard Hughes! Without the billion plus two. Once handsome and charismatic, he’s repulsive! He’s reclusive! With seven-inch finger nails! Bottles of urine scattered about, because you can’t *really* be a legendary recluse without doing something a bit extra like that! When the great waste shortage arrives, he’ll say, “A-ha! I wasn’t so crazy after all!!” Anyway, he lays on his bed. Once dashing and handsome, he’s now withering away. And his final words – he can only afford to breathe four before he expires – are, “Did the look come?” And the caregiver sadly shakes her head. But, wait!!! At the very end – while time is expiring! – *there’s* one!!! Oh!!! And it’s the warmest look of all!!! And he jumps out of bed!! Move over Lazarus!! There’s another miracle about to happen! Not to be outdone! It’s the warmest look ever!!! From the woman who inspires every cell to burst to life inside of him!! Hallelujah, he’s healed!! It feels that way!! And he asks the right questions for someone who has healed! For someone who’s gone from dead to out of bed! “Is there anything to eat?” “Oh, I’m thirsty again!! … No! Don’t bring me that bottle of urine! That’s for the great waste shortage of 2044!” I might look crazy now, but maybe the divine has something else in store!! I’m aching for water, as crystal clear as the diamonds in her ears!! I feel so alive again!! I can do somersaults and cartwheels!! It’s not the end, after all!! (*Disclaimer*: no bottles of urine have been dispensed by myself – or any other persons or animals – throughout the house. It feels important to say! And no seven-inch fingernails! The haggardness is debatable!) It’s all just imagery that gets to the heart of you inside of me, when you take that moment of your time. Even something so fleeting, it burns holes in my eyes! And it’s imprinted forever on my heart. You save souls from a demise. A demise of thoughts that might be allowed when not paying attention at the gates. Self-defeating ones that crawl in even if everything looks great. I know it’s just terrible to rely on something outside of myself to give me such power! But you’re so painstakingly beautiful in how you’re created. Painfully beautiful, sometimes it hurts to look! Have you ever felt that way about someone? A million people could walk through the door, and head on out again, and you’d be just fine! Beautiful ones, it doesn’t matter. I know it’s absurd! But you’re that Ava to a Sinatra. You’re Spencer to Kate. Oh, Kate!  Richard Burton to Elizabeth!  When in self-pity, I could throw in the towel in defeat! But the towel comes back with a howl! Every time you’re seen!! I was living in a dream for a year and a half! As they said about Norma Desmond, don’t disturb a woman in her delusion! But it’s the sweetest illusion, this dream of you. I’ve come back down to earth, but then I’m up there again! Bouncing in the clouds! This angelic shroud around you! When you smile with your mouth closed, and your wide eyes seem to spread long and thin. It’s at this very moment your magical eyes glisten!! They glimmer! And you send out something made of heaven for me. I treasure it more than anything! Anything I do in this life is in the hope of impressing you. I know that’s a terrible way to live, it’s said. But, you’re Ava. Or you’re Kate. Or you’re Elizabeth. You’re that only one out of those three! There’s only one you. Another you will never be! There’ll never be somebody other. There certainly never was before! I’m sure it’s a once-in-a-lifetime feeling! When I see you. You’re the only woman in the world. Somersaults and cartwheels are taking place in my heart, when not attempted on the floor! It’s like getting that pardon in the final hour! It’s someone on his deathbed finding resurrection! And, on those days it doesn’t arrive, I say, “Well, it’s just another day. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?” But on these days it arrives!! There have been so many lately! I have to say, “Thank You!!!” Oh, it’s *Everything!!!!* You are so totally adored! It means the world. To me. I know for others, too. But, in all honesty, I don’t care about them! Aren’t I just the worst?! I’m a two-year-old holding onto a ball screaming, “Mine! Mine! Mine!!!” I don’t want to let others play! I’m the child in the supermarket lying flat on his stomach and kicking his hands and his feet! Because he didn’t get what he wanted! I did that once! Okay, it was last week! I’m not so wonderful, after all. But can you blame me? You’re so indescribably magical it brings out the most infantile of feelings. Once in a while, one is bound to slip out! “No, I want *that* one!!!” The child cries, and it’s that way a kid does it. It’s grief like you’ve never seen it! The face is all red, and there’s holding of the breath! And the face contorts, and then there’s this silent pause … because you know something is coming! And, look out below!! Here comes the *wail!!!* That wail that shatters through the heavens and shattered glass is falling! “I saw what I love more than anything in life!!! Oh, *why* can’t I touch it!!!” And a jaded old man laughs and says, “Life isn’t fair, kid. Get used to it!” It’s the lesson everyone must learn sooner or later, one way or another. You can be in love with every ounce of your being. All-encompassing and all-the-way, yes! But it’s always half of any story. And 50% won’t get you an A. I guess I’m not so wonderful, after all. Please forgive the self-pity! Please overlook the maudlin immaturity. But if there’s no passion like that for you that sneaks out at times, well, who wants to love a cardboard box! Like those two fishes in the yin and the yang! Even if you’re swimming all the time in purest white, the white still has that black eye! And the black always has that spot of white in it. Better to let it all out in a day of self-pity, than to suppress it or pretend it doesn’t exist. Worse yet, to try to sell myself as something wonderful, when I’m as human as the rest! I love you! I adore you! Oh, why can’t it be me?! And the angels say, looking at their watch and tapping their wings against the ceiling, impatiently, “Are you through yet? Or you need a little more time?” And, like a child after that tsunami of tears, there’s that whimpering and sniffling after the storm has subsided. A bit embarrassed, and when no words are said. This adjustment to the rules of life, however fair or unfair. Like a kid in the old days with baseball cards, “I’ll give you two Willie Mays, and all the cards I’ve got! All this and a pack of bubble gum, just for that one of yours.” That one with her name and her face! Her fiery hair, and those soul-crushing eyes!! He’d give it all away. Everything!! That’s what you do to guys. And little boys. Of any age. How can I go back to living, when all life pours through you! You’re the most magical woman in the world. It’s like how Lucy felt for Desi. “He was the love of my life, … but I just couldn’t take it anymore.” So she settled down with a really nice guy, and life was secure, but she never really seemed happy in the end. Then, that one moment before Desi died. The two of them in a swimming pool! Looking like life-long friends. Laughs shared only between two of them. Holding a grandchiild, reunited after twenty-five years. And it was like nothing had changed! It was like two souls that were always connected, together again. She even brushed back his hair! That’s my greatest fear. I’l never be successful like you. But I might have a buck or two. And just enough to be seen as attractive by some mere mortal, I imagine. And, then do I settle down with someone who seems to love me? But would somebody then say about me the same as they did for Lucy?  “He had a lot. But he never really seemed happy in the end.” Am i kidding myself that I could ever be your friend? The Las Vegas odds don’t look too promising! I’m about up there with the chances Doris Day will win another Grammy! But, I know I could! Be a friend! I know it!! What’s the harm in adoring you a bit closer, even if I’m never your one? It could be adorable. Your friend would say as you walk away, “Who’s that?” And you say, “This guy who is in love with me. It’s a long story.” And maybe she’d say, “It’s adorable.” He writes books about you. Long ones, too! He’d write songs, too, if he could sing. In truth, he’s trying, anyway. The chances any will be a hit song are about the same as a new tune from Louis Armstrong. And, yet again, what’s the harm in someone who simply serenades you, whether by song or by pen? It could be like when poor Judy Garland was with some guy who was harming her, and she called up Frank. And within three hours he sent some guy to Florida to look out for her (a cleaned up version!). But that knowing there’s always a connection on the other end. Someone who would never hang up. A connection free of static, and no call waiting. Never a “Can you hold on a second?” It’s a line unbreakable. It’s always there. Even if there’s dust on the receiver, you know he’ll be waiting. Right there. To take your call. You learned a long time ago nothing is ever expected, but, oh, the dreams one dreams of you! You’re sunshine! You’re golds and blues! You’re fire and champagne, you’re picnics on pink-and-white-checkered blankets in the woods. Your softest skin, and all the expressions that are yours! You’ll never grow old. Not in my eyes. When looking back from fifty years forward, you say, “Do you remember when you wrote this one?” and by then you’re reading it off some cloud in the sky – technology has gone far – and you look at your old friend, and you see it’s all still there in his eyes! As he looks at you. People simply adore you. They’ll do some crazy things!! But it’s nothing ever harmful! It’s the stuff people do beyond reason. It’s how you know they’re in love. They’ll overlook any suffering, or embarrassment or humiliation. They’d stand in Times Square in their underwear – people who normally wear suit coats and pants! Accountants and stuffed shirt-types, would tear it all off just to be noticed by you. Figuratively speaking in this case! As that’s not the way to get to you, anyway! But, ah! Simply to be noticed by you. To breathe in your rarified air. You could be selling Beyonce boxes on the corner, it doesn’t matter what you do! If anything, he’d stand a better chance. If you were a barista, and every day he picked up his passion iced tea – she’s in the iced tea corner!! Well, Ice T, close enough! – he’d have planned some line in advance. A three-second exchange, and for that guy it’s his whole day, no matter what else he has planned. But it just so happens you’re the brightest star in the sky! The most beautiful by a light year! You’re magic that’s always traveling! It’s you who makes the scene. It’s never the other way around. If you were to leave, it would become a traveling show. A caravan of admirers following you, no matter where you go! If you allowed it. If you gave permission it could be so. And it wouldn’t even be noticed if you were playing Carnegie Hall or the local dive bar! That’s all Setting. Background noise while you provide the sound! And a heart sounds! Time and Place is always you. And, you’re a star forever. Because you’re inside of people’s hearts. If anything were to happen to you, people would stand up for you! Loyalty undying. That thing that often isn’t revealed until it’s tough going. Those moments where people say, “I really found out who my friends are.” That one who would always be standing, even in the rain, as said before. Loyalty is something that has to be proved. Maybe it’s something deep down you can sense. Maybe it’s in the energy with a certain person. If anything bad ever happened to you, it would be happening to him. In his heart it’s all one inseparable thing. In his heart that song is singing – the way the Brady Bunch did it in 1974 – “Wherever you goooo! Whatever you doooo!! We’re gonna go through it – *to-getherrrr!!!*” It’s all for one and one for all!! What happens to your heart, happens to mine. Intertwined!! It’s always this way. Could I ever be a friend? Some positively would say, those are the very best kind!! And maybe after all those years when you’re 80 and I’m 173, you say, “Is there anything I can do for you?” And I say, like Doc in Field of Dreams, “Win one for me someday, will ya, boys?” I say, while lost in your dazzling blues, “Give a look for me someday, darling, will you?” And here you give them all the time! Yours is the gift I most treasure in my life. Don’t feel sorry for me. I’ve had a lot of things. It’s meant to say you are what shines so bright. My heart sings! I come back to life! Even when I didn’t know I was sinking. You lift me up by my lapel. Looking into your eyes is like looking into heaven itself. For me. It always is. You’re magic that’s real to me. I feel my soul serenading! Gushing, and respectfully. You replenish! Everything!! You’re the dearest vision. I’ve never felt love so powerfully! I hope you forgive my occasional tantrum on the floor. I’m afraid some days I’m still two years old inside. But underneath that ruckus is a heart that runs so gentle. The sight of you makes me cry. You’re the most beautiful person alive. You’re an angel, as John Coffey would say – you resurrect from the Green Mile on this day. And it comes with his childlike innocence. “An angel. Like right up in heaven.” My eyes grow wide like a child’s. I seem to always mouth a silent “Wow.” No wonder that I cry. And like a child after that tsunami of tears, who is now past the sniffling and eye watering, the adult says, “Now, what do you say to her?” And embarrassedly facing his head to the floor, he says, “Sorry.” And the adult says, “*And?* … What else?” And the tear-filled boy says, “Thank you.” Thank you for letting me feel two years old again on days when I feel ninety-four! Thank you for uplifting me euphoric and resurrected on days I feel on the floor. It’s as simple as a look from you. I’m in the clouds so soon!! Suddenly anything that looks impossible in my own life is gifted with some clearer vision. Impossible things begin to happen! Well, once in a while, they do. And after the sniffling and the head bowing, I feel serene. It’s like a circus and an amusement park and fireworks are all happening!! Inside of me. Every! Single! Time! Every blessed time you are seen. Who else *does* that? Nobody else but you. I promise. You’re always – today and forever – the most beautiful woman in the world. ❤️