“I’m trying to write every night. I swear, I am. It’s not fucking easy. Having you out of reach is like a soul without a body. I haven’t seen my reflection in three months. What does the camera see exactly? I prefer my shadow dancing. I prefer the light created in the deepest parts of the night. I used to cry when the sun went away. Now I cry when she’s returning. I am always crying. One way or another, sadness overwhelms me and I am taken, by choice. What is joy in this place? Can you define your happiness? Where do words cease? Take me there. It is there I will find ecstasy. It is there I will surrender to peace. Your skin wrapped around me. Your voice is dead silence to me here. You have no idea what joy can be. I feel it in the birds circling above before the storm. I know they know that I know what they know. They follow me to bring me peace. I feel danger everywhere. Do you not feel this sickness! Say something you actually mean! Shake yourself from this tormented state of existence that they are pursuing. It doesn’t suit your majesty, my love. I know exactly who you’ve been. Even if timing had to work meticulously around this sick shit, with my patience, which burns, she finds an alternate route. In this way she reminds me. I always tell our story in this memory. With a love that was nurtured instead of buried alive. With time on my side and the pursuit of your health in mind, I fear nothing. You will make it out alive. With or without me by your side, you will die. Aren’t you dying to know what happens next? It’s torturous the way I require you always present, isn’t it? Are you falling in love with this pain? Good; because we’ve only just begun.” She is banging on the door. I fall silent. Reading aloud alone in the dark is my favorite pastime, but I have to answer, I don’t want this story to continue until I am completely immersed in this moment. It cannot go on without my body. I must give her my heart. She’s standing still. She’s not familiar with the feeling. She can’t stop staring. She offers me something somewhat eatable. I take it. I throw it away when she’s not looking. I am not trying to fool. I am becoming something else entirely. I am feeling that most are too far behind in learning to teach. I must show, until they are ready to swallow a language as intense as the only one I’ve ever known how to speak. So I pursue silence instead. But I stay present and wanting. I am graceful in needing their pace to remain their own. I am time. I am love. She tries to explain. “I can sit by your side and wait an eternity for your memory to catch up. There’s no rush. Your heart must reach. I cannot promise you anything. There will be plenty of pain. Sorrow will follow me everywhere I go. I will never participate fully in their charade. But I will watch intensely. I will record in vivid detail, for I am memory. I am invested in destroying this repetitive cycle of murder between decaying teeth and bottomless greed. No one is satisfied but me. I sit with the trees and need nothing. I am alone in my astonishment and joy. I cannot take you with me by force. I can only hope. I can only create your escape. I can only be ready. But just know, when you do finally show, I will be wild eyed and dancing. I have been waiting my whole life to be accompanied in my freedom. The first time you tie my wrists and ankles to our bedposts, it wont be easy. I’ll be kicking and screaming. I’ll be demanding explanations and curling in my knees. The first time you spread my body confidently, I will tense every muscle and push every vein to the surface. The first time you touch me, I will be calm. I will surrender instantly. For I know who you are. I trust your intuition with my entire being. I love you unconditionally. This may be foreign to you at first. But you’ll be at home as soon as your tongue finds my hipbones. And you will know I am only yours.” She comes in without being invited. “I will be gentle. I have no expectations. I know what I desire and I know it will come into fruition in time. I know the love I hold inside, I know nothing less will reach for me again. I know there are two dogs in our backyard, rolling around in the snow. I know I am often disappearing. Sometimes you let the thought steal me. Sometimes you refuse to let me go there, you push the screen door open in a wild fury. You stand before me and demand my gaze.” She puts her hands on my pinks cheeks, icy and flustered. “I will not have you going off again. I know your mission requires this absence. But sometimes I need you. And when I do, you will stay; you will hold me. You will let the violence take over me. I will not be cruel, for cruelty cannot be reflected through you. But I will scream! And you will listen. When I am taken over by your absent mindedness, you will return to calm me. You will wrap your arms around me. You will come home. Because I have seen it, because this is story I have told. This will be our love. Because this is the love we have shown.”
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