Desire,

My old friend and timeless lover; nearest sibling and trusted confidant to Grief. Voluptuous androgyne; you contain it all within you; a mirror to your many lustings.

I awake to see you in the morning; your arms are outstretched, lips parted in anticipation, eyes gleaming with a fiery reflection. You bat your lashes gesturing towards the horizon, twirling your long tail and gyrating your hips. You are wooing the sun to rise, tantalizing her to shine her rays wider, to show you her splendid, naked light.

You titrate; move as though you are evaporating, or crumbling into yourself, inciting a strange and sudden thirst within me — and just on the brink of disappearing, you shift, unfurling, stretching strong and tall and fluid towards the sky, so that I am at once parched and then satiated again through your dance.

You have a sparkly, ethereal streak (after all, you did give birth to Fantasy). And you also know about seeds and roots and soil and the start of things. You know the origin stories of every being right back to its deep seed dreaming; its eager straining towards the light through seed husk and dirt, its tiny and mighty acid bath swim, its silent magnetic call; an egg in the dark like a lone planet in deep space.

You have a wild intelligence, a deep knowing, and x-ray vision. You see straight to peoples’ hearts, and you respect their struggle. In every being, you feel the original energy, ripe with longing to burst forth into the world; to become a living thing; to touch and be touched.

Sometimes I am overwhelmed by your largeness. Your fierce beauty and piercing stare unnerve me. I find myself averting my eyes. I get flustered and wish you would leave. You laugh at how serious I am in your presence. Yet, when I allow myself to meet your gaze, I am received with compassion and sincerity. You bring forth many contradictions, but you never lie. To befriend you is to see and know myself more clearly.

You have an affinity with the poets. You thrive where people praise you. You want to be received and you love to be seen, and revel in yourself when you have a witness. Though, the very next moment you will disappear into a crowd after locking eyes, leaving me to wonder about you and to wander the back streets in hopes of finding you again. At times, I feel you most intimately when you are nowhere to be found.

Your playful teasing tickles me, rubbing at my sore spots. Your friendship can be challenging. But you’re not to blame. I know you are just showing me the tender parts. Your game isn’t out of spite. It’s divine play — it’s an open invitation. Your taunting, ultimately, is beckoning me to expand around my losses, and to dare to reach.

“Don’t make yourself small,” you say, “yield to your yearning. Sense the possibilities. Discover what moves you, and let it. And if you don’t get the thing, you’ll at least have claimed your More. Consume it whole. Shiver it down. Let it transform you.”

You teach me the arts of sublimation; transmutation; the alchemy of eros. You are my muse, my mirror, stirring up my cosmic fuel.

I follow you into the horizon, pulled by my tender aching, and join the dance; an act of surrender, a prayer for renewal. Within me, I hear your voice whispering, “Forget what it is you want. What does it feel like to want?”