As I read your words, I see a snapshot of my heart. You write the things I dare not speak at least for the moment.

I cannot bring myself to say the things I think and the things that matter the most to me right now.

In some ways it is like being back to square one in the things that I record for me to later look back on.

And even though I cannot bring myself to write the things that would bring some relief to my soul, I find a release when I see my thoughts expressed in the words you leave out.

To see my life and the inner workings of my heart in print, authored by those barely aware of my existence, gives me a sort of anonymity. It leaves me safe behind a wall of glass. Easily shattered exposing my nakedness for all to see. And yet the words are yours, so the image left is one of you, and I am quite invisible though I stand in plain sight.

And you are not one. You are many, or should I say a few. Yes, few would more accurately reflect the truth. And this gift you give to me by expressing the things I am too ashamed to exhibit with my signature upon them is given without your knowing I have received it.

You provide an escape from the war that rages inside. An island separated from the uncertainty of the struggle that goes on within and without.

Your words give substance and form to the thoughts that have lived without form in the recesses of my mind.

The clarity you bring is a calm that follows the storm. I feel the ever growing peace that comes from having a direction to go. And my compass has always been with me, though obscured at times by the cloudiness that I let seep in.

And it is your words that have been a gentle breeze that dissipates the fog.

Your words, my thoughts, parallel paths as different as they are alike.

I light my beacon with the flame that burns within you. And you may not even know who you are.