At first sight

It's funny, if you really think about it, how you can see someone for the first time after you've already met them. I remember well the first time that I saw her. It felt like it was the first time I had truly seen anyone. The sun shone through her bedroom window, falling into a glossy sheen upon her soft, strawberry and honey colored hair. She gazed up at me with eyes of a stunning blue, like a storm of crushed sapphires and liquid stars. Those eyes held meaning, knowing me to my soul even as it seemed she was seeing me for the the first time as well. I was utterly transfixed. My heart felt like a compressed hurricane. Something in me was frantically trying to pull away, incredulous and terrified of the hope so plain before me. Would I be so foolish as to grasp at smoke yet again? However another part of me, the lions share as fate would have it, felt like it was dying of thirst, cast-away in a shallow sea. A hand was reaching out to me in the darkness. Would I be so foolish as to refuse my own salvation? I saw many things in her. There were many new beginnings to be had. However I saw too, perhaps in my selfishness, many ends as well. An end to my distrust and loneliness. An end to illusion and self recrimination. An end to agony and wrath. I saw in her an oasis, and I wanted desperately to be hers as well. It was in the midst of my introspective turmoil that I burst out with a question I hadn't known I was going to ask. "Do you think you could ever love me?" Without hesitation she replied, "Yes...if I could just let myself. Let it all go." I pulled her close. The scent of her washed through me like a springtime wind. Our fingers intwined. Her skin felt like silken clouds. I saw in her the same longing that had grown in me. In that moment I had stepped out through the veil of my previous existence into the unknown world of compassion and acceptance. I loved her, and was loved in return. Such an all consuming, wonderful thing to be a part of. An unparalleled dream. Pity that I had to throw it all away...just to save her from the person I turned out to be.