I recently told someone i "don't do" intimacy. That's not true, or at least, not accurate. I do intimacy, quite often, and quite well, actually. More often than not, i'm likely too intimate, too fast, too inappropriately. People aren't generally comfortable with intimacy, i find, and it creates a strain where there wasn't one, when people aren't on the same intimacy page.
Yeah, I do intimacy. But enough of that. What i don't do is vulnerability.
Now, people think i do. I am highly adept at appearing vulnerable. I am very liberal with my opinions, my speech, and my secrets - at least for the most part. The part that others would be blinded by, anyway. I am also very liberal with my body, in many respects, and that appears vulnerable too.
It's not. It's no more vulnerable than a wall. The fact that the wall's covered in murals doesn't make it any less impenetrable - it just makes it pretty.
I've long let the misconception stand, uncorrected, because it's been to my advantage to do so. At least, i thought it was. No one said otherwise, and i didn't have a stream of consciousness that could prove me wrong.
I do now. I see the error of my ways, and i see where my desperate need to protect that most precious of gems has actually, ultimately, turned that gem to coal.
Is a diamond, locked away in the clammy depths of a mine, still a diamond? Sure it is. But who the hell cares, when they don't know it's there?
Some care. Some care enough to strap on the helmet, grab a water bottle and a pick, and brave the inevitable collapse of those seemingly fortified, calcium rich walls, in search of that elusive shimmer, that tiny little universe of light you can extinguish with a fist.
To you: Thanks. I do love you, in every sense of that word - or, at least, in every sense I know. Because it's another language, from another land, but i know the scent of its soil and its rivers. I have no map, but i'll find home if i just let the land lead me.
I'll write, not because you asked me to, but because if the only way to be found is to sparkle, then i'll sparkle. You dig; i'll show you where.
How does baring one's throat behave? By baring one's throat. By throwing one's head back; in a laugh, in a rage, in tears. By closing one's eyes, and thrusting one's heart forward, and lifting one's throat to the sky in the most primal of ways.
By breathing deeply, and embracing one's own silence.
I need to learn to breathe. Properly, in controlled and conscious ways. I need to learn to use my breath to make my body - and my mind - do the things i want, and need, it to do.
I need to learn silence. To be silent, and to welcome it. I need to learn not to fear it, and i need to learn how to use it - to hear my body, to hear the message (whatever that is), and to hear my path. Because i'm sure, if i listen, it'll come to me.
I need to learn to believe that silence isn't filled with screams, or even with whispers. It's just silence, and that's ok.
I need to learn to self protect in ways that still allow for intimacy, and for vulnerability. I need to learn how to protect myself - openly, and covertly - in ways that encourage my attacker to engage with me. I need to learn to guard that which needs to be guarded, without locking it away from others, and myself.
I need to learn my body. I need to learn its strengths, and embrace them. I need to learn its weaknesses - the ones i can change, and the ones i can't. I need to learn when, and how, to push it, and when to let it rest. I need to learn to love it - like i mean it.
And i need to make it loveable. That oughta be bolded too, but it's ok.
I need to think some more, and when i do, i can start lists and plans and maps. But for now, i need to sleep.
Sing me to sleep
I don't want to wake up
On my own anymore
Sing to me
Sing to me ...
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