(I wrote this in my journal while standing outside the Hirshorn Modern Art Museum....hence the 'black metal twisting' line. It was a sculpture I was looking at.)

Black metal twists and curves in front of me.
I stand mute, mesmerized by the savage beauty,
entranced by the feelings it inspires in my hollow heart.

But then I have to question myself.
"Perhaps my heart is not so hollow?"
These swells and fissures of emotion that so joyously and painfully administer a single conclusion.
"You.....are....human."
My breath catches in my throat as tears form behind my eyes.

"Human?" My mind dares to ask.
"Now and forever." My heart replies.

My heart quickens with the implications of such a notion.
"Could I finally have gained at least a modicum of that which I had sought,
yet had remained elusive so long?
When did I acquire it, and how had it slipped past my many walls?"

I searched through my memories,
thoughts and visions of the past flying through my mind.
Then I remember.
Then I understand.

I saw the moment in time when I had been so open.
I heard the four words that opened my heart.
I heard the four words that shattered my defenses and validated my existence,
spoken from her lips.

"Scott, I love you."