A letter for

Natalie

Some people are loved. You are adored — carefully, loudly, permanently. This is every word I could never fit into one goodnight.

Natalie in an arched mirror, smiling in soft daylight

scroll, my love

Natalie posing by the poolside in a white dress and cream boots

I. Your soul

You are the most beautiful soul I have ever been near

Not just the way you look in golden light — though God, that too. It's the way you make rooms softer. The way you listen like a person matters. Beauty leaves a room when it walks out; you leave it behind you, in everyone.

still, always, more

Natalie smiling in the sunlight beside a friend under a tree

II. Your laugh

Your laughter is the sound my heart learned to keep time with

There is a version of me that existed before I heard it, and I do not miss him. You laugh and something in my chest unclenches. If joy had a language, love, it would be spoken in your voice.

still, always, more

Four portraits of Natalie in a green top

III. Your eyes

I have never been looked at the way you look at me

Like I am not a project to be fixed, but a home you chose. In your eyes I found the first mirror that told me the truth kindly. I would spend every remaining morning learning that gaze by heart.

still, always, more

Natalie taking a mirror selfie in a warm sunlit living room

IV. Your ordinary days

I want the quiet ones most of all

Not only the poolside afternoons and the dressed-up nights — the tea going cold, the mirror selfies, the socks on the wrong feet. Give me your Tuesdays, Natalie. I want the whole unglamorous forever of you.

and every day after

I promise to choose you on the easy days and fight for you on the hard ones.

I promise your dreams will never be smaller than mine.

I promise to be the safest place you know.

I promise that being loved by me will always feel like coming home.

If I only ever get one lifetime, Natalie, I want to spend all of it loving you loudly.

Yours now and forever,
Malachi