Peace is Relative

She's laying with her head on my chest.
I'm running my fingers through her hair.

"I feel so safe in your arms," she says in a voice barely above a whisper.
"You're so calm. Nothing fazes you," she marvels.

She doesn't know about the jail. About the arrests. About the fights. About the brushes with what could have been the end. She doesn't know that I have learned what it is to be content the hard way. She doesn't know about sleeping in my car. She doesn't know about squatting in *******'s house. About living without the heat turned on. About the nights sleeping in my car with ice on the ground and layering the windows.

She doesn't know how close I came to losing every single thing I had worked for after falling down the rabbit hole so hard I thought about killing myself.

"Are you happy with me?" she asks with all the girlishness my heart can bear.
"Yes...I am."
3 simple short words but an ocean of depth and meaning.

I doubt I'll ever articulate the madman I was prior....but in brief moments, I get the feeling she knows somehow subconsciously on some level ever so slightly....knows and elects not to press me further for information she knows will scare her.

In the interim, I'm just grateful that she's mine and in these moments I feel real peace.
I've learned not to expect it to last and that in this expectation it grows all the more precious and I savor it in these moments and bask in its warmth.

Good luck and happy hunting,
    - Yrs. in Christ (the reference is from Bright Lights, Big City - since you asked)