He gave me a new mirror,
not glass and silvered mercury,
but a gaze so steady, so full,
it reflects a stranger—
a better one, maybe.

I’ve always seen the faint green and brown confusion in my hazel eyes,
a color that couldn't settle,
but he calls it a landscape:
a bright place where the laugh that bursts out of me,
quick and mischievous,
sits right next to the dark, slow, gathering fire of my deepest wants.

And the shape of my mouth,
the way he watches me speak or smile—
he loves the softness and fullness there,
a cushion of tenderness,
a quiet invitation he returns to again and again.

He doesn't ask me to be soft.
Instead, his hands find the solid line of my shoulders,
the curve of my chest I worked for,
a testament to weight and will.
Strong, he says,
and the word isn't a surprise or a burden—
it’s a compliment.
He loves the anchor I've built in this body.

And then there's the transformation,
a secret pleasure of geometry,
when the thin strap of a heel lifts the ordinary line of my leg into something else,
a bold curve under the swing of a skirt.
He catches the sight of it,
a flash of appreciation that makes me feel not dressed, but revealed.

I am not just loved; I am seen,
detailed, in a way that honors both the power and the play.
And in that seeing,
I finally own the beautiful map of who I am.