Daddy told me a long long time ago,

Thank You for being patient and helping me learn my heart's strength through trial and torture.

You are someone special, you are intelligent, and you are beautiful
You can do anything you want
And at the time, all I did was fire back retorts, shooting down every comment

Special? I’m just a number in my high school. I look the same as everyone else. To be “special” is to be “popular”. I wasn’t.

Intelligent? I got a ‘C’ in this class and only one ‘A’ on the whole report card while all my friends got straight ‘A’s.

Anything I want? I want to dig a hole to china. Can’t do that! I want to go to the moon! Can’t do that (thx Obama).

But now, even though I haven’t really done much with my life, I’ve experienced life
And it took me being treated like I was something that wasn’t special that made me realize I am.  I heard my parents in the background, telling me that if someone loved me, they wouldn’t send me home crying every night, they wouldn’t fight with me regularly until 3 a.m. when my phone was just taken away, if someone truly loved me they would respect ME.
I thought I took in that information. But then I “loved” a man who threatened to stray constantly, who had the backbone of a six year old and an IQ to match, a man who only showed me he cared when I left and didn’t walk back in the door saying it was a joke.  And I realized that while I was respected, to a certain degree, I was not fully appreciated nor being given one hundred percent in response to my hundred and ten that I handed over, free of charge.
So I tried again, and allowed myself to be used, ignored, humiliated, and turned into something of little importance other than companionship so as not to be seen alone at the bar. I blinded myself to the trash talking the second I wasn’t in the room and the constant stories of your history and personality. But I thought I could make you something. I was wrong. And thank god I was. THANK GOD I WAS SO FUCKING WRONG. Because why?

Because, as a result of all those trials and broken, trampled hearts I left in the dust, I discovered the man my daddy told me about at age 12. I discovered a man who respects me, who listens, who appreciates and who lets me know that I’m in his thoughts, whether there physically or not. With this man, I feel like a capable human being, intelligent, beautiful, someone special. I feel special. And I hope he feels special, because my god, the man is the lottery ticket no numbers can claim, nor some random person in Ohio. This lottery ticket is mine, all mine, and I am forever keeping it alongside my heart.

We watch tv together on the couch and I lean my head to place it on your chest. Your heart pounds steadily, a deep solid beat. As I lay there, I check my heart rate, fluttering wildly, it begins to slow down over a period of several minutes. I check ten minutes later, and it beats at the same rhythm as yours. I smile and you kiss me softly on the head. Then my heart rate loses all sense of tempo and begins beating wildly, threatening to burst from within my ribcage, until I quell it with a meaningful kiss, one that tells each other, you are my world and my everything. I only want you. For the rest of my life. And wherever we go after our bodies have finished. I. Want. You.