Have you ever been loved?

Has someone ever told you they wanted to be with you for the first time?
Have you ever experienced the newness of that first butterfly in your stomach?
Have you tasted a first kiss?
Shuddered at a first touch?
Listened to a love song and associated it to someone besides whoever it may have been written about?

Have you ever been broken?

Have you ever been told you could never be enough, by the only person you would ever believe that from?
Have you ever believed that you were completely useless?
That someone else's approval defined your worth?
That alone, you would amount to nothing?

Have you ever been rebuilt?

Have you ever been so desperate to reclaim that sense of usefulness, that you allowed yourself to endure the worst of a person?
Of people?
Have you ever tried to find yourself in another person for such a long time, that you forgot who you were?
Forgot how to remember who you were?
Who you are?

Have you ever been abandoned?

Left to all but die?
Has someone's absence left you so completely alone, that you shut down entirely?
Have you ever tasted your own rot on your breath?
Have you ever lost control of your own body?
Has it ever been in so much pain, that it tried to rip itself away from you before you realized that's what it was doing?

Have you ever been reinvented?

Have you ever felt something click in your head, that suddenly made everything make sense?
Have you gone through the remnants of your memories and past, and picked up every broken piece of yourself you could find?
Have you ever put yourself back together from the ground up? Gotten to stand back and look at this jagged afterimage of all you used to be?
Did you know that this new version of yourself, though it may look as though you're viewing your reflection from a broken mirror, is in fact... beautiful?

Have you ever been loved? Truly loved?

Has someone held you in his arms, and whispered to you that you were enough as you are?
Has someone ever shown you gentle, quiet love? Sharing the little things with each other, simply because one thinks the other will smile at it?
Has someone ever shown you bright, loud love? Made you feel like everything and more, even when all you did today was get out of bed?

I have.
I've seen all of that.
I've been there.
I've done that.

Isn't that beautiful?