Hidden deep within me is a clue for which I search endlessly.  It answers the question I dare not ask.  This quest seeks to define the motivation fueling my love of you.  Should I make such a query and it fade into the background for fear of discovery, what then?

Within me lies no doubt for the obvious.  You shower me with friendship I do not deserve.  You offer me peace to fill my days.  You brighten my lightless heart with satiating happiness.  You wrap me in belonging.  Such benefits you offer freely.  But what if they were taken away?  Upon what rocky seas would my life sail were that to happen?

There is no denying the splendor of joy you bring into my existence.  It is as though life itself ebbs from you and infuses my very soul.  Your thoughtfulness washes over the world in magical displays.  There is even irresistible glory in the way you comfort me when I cry.

I can think of no better way to live.  Surely there can be no other way to live.  Pure ecstasy befalls me when I hear your voice.  Imagine my awe when I see you.

And all this leads me back to my question.  The gifts with which you bestow me are numerous and rare.  Satisfaction beyond physical realms awaits me with you.  But which do I love the most, you or what you give?  Such inquiry haunts me.

You give of yourself freely.  What I state and the innumerable I leave unspoken you offer without compromise and without demand.  Beyond gifts both seen and unseen, however, and safely escaped from promises, I wish my motivation for loving you to rest on hills of ungiving, on shores of person and not thing, on plains stretched unto quality without bending to selfishness.  That which remains unasked has only one true and proper answer: Let me do all things neither for what you do nor for what you give, but humbly let it be adorned only for the love of you.

Were benefits reason enough to give away a heart, I would never lack justification for loving you.  As surely as the sun will rise in the morning and kiss my skin with its warmth, so too can I rely upon the blessings you shower down on me.  Yet perfection evades human hands and pain comes with living; therefore, I accept equal shares of anguish that must exist between us.  Even then I lose nothing.

To finally ask and answer my own question…  What is my motivation for loving you?

Risks come with every moment and every life we touch.  Knowing you offers gifts I am unworthy to receive.  Despite all other considerations, let this ardor have only one reason to exist: for the love of you.

[circa 1988]