Each year I return to you with the same familiar phrase,
searching for new language through the same well-worn maze.
The feeling keeps outgrowing every word I try to send,
too vast and too alive for any sentence to contain or end.
I watch you in the quiet hours, your brown eyes soft and slow,
the furrow of your brow, the smile that sets the whole room aglow.
And when you catch me watching I hold your gaze, then look away —
a ritual between us we repeat with every passing day.
For in those stolen moments your true self feels most secure,
no weight upon your shoulders, no expectations to endure.
It has never once been difficult to love who you are,
not because the road was easy or the storms were few by far.
What we have keeps finding through whatever comes its way,
its path back to the simple truth that nothing can betray.
You brighten every room you enter with your quiet grace,
a light that bends the atmosphere of every crowded place.
You pour yourself for others with a generosity so rare,
giving more than most would dare to give, more than most would bear.
If I could place my vision like a gift inside your hands,
you would finally see yourself the way that everyone understands.
That you stand among the finest things this world has ever known,
the most extraordinary soul these grateful eyes have ever been shown.
For every joy I've known alone has only been a part,
but every moment shared with you becomes a work of art.
You are the wheels that move me, without you I'd go astray,
I am the headlights showing you the adventures ahead each day.
We are a love that weathered every storm and chose to stay,
no surrender to the darkness, no letting go along the way.
We are a story written together, page by page and year by year,
but every chapter dims for you when doubt is all that you can hear.
There has to be a way for you to finally see what I have always known,
yet every word I reach for leaves the truest feelings still unshown.
There is nowhere else I'd ever choose to be but right here by your side,
no other love, no other life, no other soul in whom I'd confide.
And if one truth sustains me as the coming years unfold,
it is the love between us, steady, certain, and bold.
And though my words have always fallen short of what I truly feel,
I hope this time they find you, and finally make it real.