I think I should

I think it’s romantic to bite your lover on the cheek and on the shoulder. On the palm of their hand and the back of their forearm while they drive you home for the night. To walk through busy streets with arms twisted together like pretty entwinements, like shibari, even on the warmest days when the sun feels like it’s frying you and intimate contact leaves you wanting a long shower and your cooled bed at night.

My hipbones and thighs bruise easily and I'm drawn to cult leader attire. Billowy white, stuffy navy blue and black garments, things that mean so little, yet so so much. I want a lot of things, but the thing I want the most is to always live with passion, kindness, and love in mind no matter how many other things drown me in feelings of want. To, no matter how much time has gone by, always live without fear that my heart is too big for the rest of my body. Maybe it's because I was born in the Springtime that there's something about birth and renewal that touch me. I change and change and change and change but I still love you. I have scars along my ankles and one bruise on my calf so large that I keep it covered with a bandage. Maybe I'm obsessed with pain.

I used to worry that someone would interfere between us getting what we wanted, until I realized that was never really what was keeping us from candor. Instead, it's us who are at fault for our own fears that maybe things are too good to be true. That abuse from the past doesn't have to follow me if I make sure to navigate myself away from its path. Never in my mind did I think that I would be in a spot again where I let vulnerability run its course and make me lash out of affection. What happened back in March scared me and I'm sure it's what made this timeline the way it is right now. I was scared and I still am, but now more than ever is the time for me to allow myself to achieve all that I desire and more. Why should I sacrifice a future of loveliness to drown in errors of the past that I worked so hard to heal from? Love is still alive if you want it to be!

My body has been wrecked by anxiety this entire week. I feel it in my wrists, as if they've been lazily bound by rope and left to burn and in my lower back as if I've been grazing edges and corners of old furniture like a sleepy kitten and most of all I feel it in my chest. As if someone took their fist and drove it straight down towards my heart so much so that I can't stand up for myself and welcome good things in like I should.

I know who I am. I'm positive. I'm positive that I'm quick-witted, charming, kind, forgiving, mindful, loving, maybe beautiful, highly intuitive, and always always passionate. I know this, but why am I letting fear cut me off again? Why do I let my thoughts trail into deluded darkness when that bright and beautiful warmth was right in front of me this entire time? It's time I set this self-pity aside on the credenza and gather myself again. Who else is wallowing on a Thursday evening at the start of July instead of focusing on the green green leaves dancing on tree branches and being kissed by warm breezes or the coldness of air kissing rosy cheeks whenever you come back inside? 

I think it's time. Now is when I think I should let it all fall into place. I think I should meet you again when there's stars in the sky and you can tell me everything that you need me to know. We'll start from there and see where this goes. I think I should let you tell me that you're ready, because I know now that I'm ready, too. I think I should let this be the perfect timing that you wanted all along, because it's the only time that you'll get from me. Once we get this all over with, you can do your part as a lover and I'll meet you on the other side. I hope there's flowers.

I think I should come back down to Earth again. 

Art by Janusz Stanny