My Queen, my Dear Beloved

I suppose it's true, these steps matter.
Day by day, working facet through facet.
These new shoes remind me that times change,
we grow and morph
into a new version of ourselves.
Harder to remember who I used to be.
Maybe it's for the best.
Not you, not anyone will ever really see me.
The real me.
The perceived me.
One in the same, impossible to discern.
Leos want to be worshiped, I've read.
Keeping ego in relative check,
while realizing it's ok to want to be seen.
There was a time I was called something special.
A special friend.
A lady, once.
That day at the museum, I was taken aback
at the idea of putting our names in a heart.
Didn't feel real, no it couldn't be.
Let that moment chisel into my being,
direct me more to you.
Wanted to be in the eyes of you.
Beholden to you.
Maybe we are the fools, at times.
Perhaps lucky to have had the chance to become one.
Maybe we're all fools, any way.
This dragon, this beast that is love.
We never really get taught to tame it,
certainly not before. Only during or in looking back.
It must be free,
cannot be tethered or ensnared.
You cannot claim it in fear,
demand it be more or less than it is.
The love is the love and it grows as it grows,
til the day it waxes and fades.
Worry not, my dear beloved.
My Queen, my Queen.
This love, right here.
Harness it and caress it and grow it
for the rest of your years.
Keep it close, keep it safe.
Don't forget again this lesson that you are enough.
Don't need the love of another to be worth a darn or a damn.
All of the darns and damns
couldn't even save you from yourself.
No one could, you know it's true.
The love you need most, the one that could ever be most true.
Put your hand on your chest,
breathe in and out, out and in.
It's there. Let us learn to know it
and grow it and strengthen it's roots.
Tall and proud.
I love you, Queen. I'll never leave you.
Please don't leave me.