Leaning into the cold, watching the smoke rest in the cool starry night like a lingering realisation, I spent my precious minutes thinking about something which has festered in my soul and caused me pain and cynicism: love. Love, and her sisters: truth, and beauty, and how they merge together perfectly to create the most wonderful and eternal of gifts– the great thing that we call life.

The song that was playing beside me has always made me think of her, but in the cool, sobering air I realised that when I have you, nothing need make me think of her, because all that I love at this endless moment is you. Those words of heart-rending sadness just ceased to make me feel that way, and ignited a fire of thought that mingled with my emotions and set them in line, and everything that was beautiful in the world suddenly made sense to me.
Everything can be beautiful. It can all be so beautiful because there is one thing linking all the beauty in the world, one thing that makes everything else shine brighter– love. For every moment of splendour and magnificence, there is a trail of love that can be faintly followed, showing us how love gives everything meaning and power.

And tracing back the trail running behind me? There are the people who made me weaker, the people who made me stronger, and the person who made me everything that is beautiful in the world, the person I love. When someone falls in love, it changes them, turns them from a hollow vessel of monotony to a shining beacon, glowing alight with fervour and passion, and an everlasting flame that will never die.

Right now, at this precise moment, I am that beacon. I am my own bright, fiery beacon, and I am part of something bigger, something more fantastic than the world of a single human. I am part of the timeless emotion that runs through our veins– dormant in some, burning alive in others, but always there. I am part of something which is ablaze with vivacity and strength, something which is the voice of global empowerment, the heartbeat of a universe, the glimmer of hope that flares into a phenomenon that will stay alight for as long as there is emotion. I am part of everything that ever was, and ever will be, and most importantly: I am part of you, and I want to stay alive in you forever, burning in our beacons, and smouldering inside our own precious pockets of eternity.