In Praise of the Vulnerable Man

This is just made me cry.
This is my husband. This is my Rush. This is my Mate, who is not afraid to cry in my arms.
This is the man I love, whose strength to be vulnerable allows me to give the same to him.
This man who trusts me enough to be vulnerable, is the man in whose arms I can be.

You are the bravest man I’ve ever met 
You unreluctant at treacherous ledge 

You are the sexiest man I’ve ever been with 
You, never hotter than with armor spent 

When you do what you do to provide 
How you land in the soft as you fortify 

This is in praise of the vulnerable man 
Why won’t you lead the rest of your cavalry home 

You, with your eyes mix strength with abandon 
You with your new kind of heroism 

And I bow and I bow down to you 
To the grace that it takes to melt on through 

This is in praise of the vulnerable man 
Why won’t you lead the rest of your cavalry home 
This is a thank you for letting me in 
Indeed in praise of the vulnerable man 

You are the greatest man I’ve ever met 
You the stealth setter of new precedents 

And I vow and I vow to be true 
And I vow and I vow to not take advantage 

This is in praise of the vulnerable man 
Why won’t you lead the rest of your cavalry home 
This is a thank you for letting me in 
Indeed in praise of the vulnerable man

I love you. I trust you because you trust me.
You are my safety because you understand the courage it takes to bare your soul. 

I was bouncing, writing happily about committing violence on you, when three simple words broke it.
Broke me.

How ironic. I was writing about breaking you, when your words broke me.

“I trust you.”

You don’t understand.

I have heard a thousand “I love you’s” from a hundred throats. That is not arrogance but truth. I care for people and make no secret of it, accept them and let them know that- it is damned attractive in a world in which we all feel as though we must be ‘perfect’ to be loved.
I have heard a thousand ‘I love you’s’ from a hundred throats, and perhaps a dozen, in close to 30 years, truly meant it, meant it as I do.

So those words mean little to me- they are a way of justifying your emotions, your desire, a way of expressing need without admitting that it is need and nothing more.

I trust you.

Those words are rarer, harder.

Do not misunderstand. I hold the trust of more people than even I probably realize. I have made a career of being the person people trust.

And yet, it never fails to hit home, never fails to kick me square in the chest and draw an almost subliminal need to be worthy of that trust.

I am thankful I don’t hear those words often.

You thought they made me uncomfortable, seemed amused by it.
You misunderstand.

It isn’t discomfort you see. It is the abrupt drop of tensed shoulders, the standing from a stalking crouch. It is the Predator turning from focused hunter intent on maiming you, into a purring pussycat and tempting me to rub against you in invitation to stroke her coat.

Solitary Intimacy

All that Rush wanted for Father's Day was for us to ride together.
We just bought him a motorcycle, and we finally got my love running again. Finally.
Saturday was a clusterfuck of love and pain and joy and sorrow and deep, deep grief.
But in the end, late that night, after joy and companionship in the brightly lit garage with the scent of brake fluid and laughter, I rode her home.

Sunday morning, I slipped to my knees so that Rush could place the collar around my neck. On these days, we are in service to one another: one Mother's Day & my birthday, he to me. On Father's Day & his birthday, I to him. It settled around my throat, cool and slightly heavy and a joyful reminder of my promise to the man I love.

An hour or two later, we hit the road together for the first time.

I have never ridden with a partner, and only ridden with another person twice. A random friend in Florida, and my roommate in Alabama. That was nearly 7 years ago. I have always ridden alone, for the nearly 10 years Skya has been mine.
I have not even been on her in 2 years, and it took a little while to remember basic lane discipline, to return the muscle memory of throttle and clutch and front brake, rear brake, shifting with my feet, leaning and turning and bracing against the highway wind.
Rush rode behind me, his faster bike and more recent riding deferring to my cruiser and long time away from the road.

We had our fits and starts, a clog in the petcock and her determined slowing despite everything I had on the throttle and a desperate slap to the choke before it abruptly cleared and we shot forward into the sunshine with Rush fast behind us.

The highway is my least favorite riding: cars and hot asphalt and traffic inching too close to my fenders and wind shoving me along the lane and nothing worth looking at for hours on end. But at the north end of 400, off of exit 17, GA-9 opens into a beautiful, curving path to my favorite mining town of Dahlonega.

It was bliss to ride again, and a new type to ride with the man I love, my best friend.
Riding together is a solitary form of companionship. You are together in an incredibly intimate manner, depending on one another for direction, leadership, protection, and laying your life in your partner's hands. You follow them into curves and across bridges, trusting they know the route, trusting they will not lead you astray or into danger.... and yet it is also solitary. We do not have the fancy new helmet with the CB radios or bluetooth phone access. We ride solitary with only earbuds playing our separate music and the singular thoughts passing across our eyes. We check on one another in mirrors and with quick turns of our head, but every curve is taken alone and every dapple of sunlight hits only our eyes as we ride together.

Solitary intimacy as the wind passes around us, against us, as each curve leans ahead of us and we judge alone at what speed we can take it. Singular companionship as we choose the route together and ride alone along it, every one of the million split-second decisions required on these curvy mountain roads decided alone and yet weighing into the decision of the other.

Pulling up beside one another at stoplights, stop signs. A nod, a grin, hand signals our only communication and yet we are as in sync in this moment as in the throes of sex.
It is almost a disappointment to arrive in Dahlonega and park our bikes side by side in the space, despite my aching back and vibrating ass. It is almost a loss to regain speech and lose the solitary intimacy of riding together.

Fortunately, we have another 4 hours of riding ahead of us...

(Stopped for a picnic on the way up)

Wise words

Sorry for being late on the HNT- I'll post it later today.

Meanwhile, Guy Baldwin's words are, as usual, incredibly powerful in most contexts than simply BDSM:

"Let me remind you that the words integrity and integrate are related.
In psychology, we speak of an “integrated personality,” and by that we mean that all the parts of one’s self fit together and mesh smoothly with all the other parts.
We mean that no part of the self is exiled.
We mean that all parts of the self welcome all the other parts.
We mean that none of the parts of the self is at war with any other part... As I said last week in Los Angeles, 'The brave may not live forever, but the ashamed do not live at all.'”

(This is from his Keynote at the Houston NLA )

Live. Live as who you are. 

Laugh. Loud and long and without fear. 

Love. Not only others and the world around you, but yourself... all of it. 

Nostalgia

This is supposed to be my evening of alone-time. D & Akasha are together, the baby is asleep, and I am finally able to truly just relax and be entirely alone without weight of expectations or needs.
I love my partners with everything in me, but true alone-time is an increasing rarity in my life.


Instead, I am thinking about the Navigator tonight.

I have just finished re-reading a piece of erotica we co-wrote, passing it semi-randomly while looking for another document on google and clicking on it from pure nostalgia.

What we wrote was never truly on the table in real life, it was a fantasy that even the one wonderful night we did have could never truly live up to... no experience, no matter how amazing, can match 3 years of fantasy and pent-up desire.

But reading that story, remembering the heat of his lips on mine and the faint hint of worked metal that he always seems to carry rubbed into my skin from his own... I miss him.
I know that we are never meant to be, and I wouldn't leave my husband, my girl, or my son.
But it has been over a year since I have seen his face, heard his voice, or smelled the warm scent of his skin on mine, and I miss him.

I miss the comfort of being curled up with him and bullshitting about everything from cars to the insanity of women's fashion. I miss the warmth of his hands in my hair and the easy comfort of working beside him painting, landscaping, or writing a paper.
I miss the solid trust in his friendship and the pleasant sexual tension that never quite went away.

I know that my life right now, and the relationships I'm in, do not allow for the same relationship that he and I once had. I have no idea if he would even find my post-partum body attractive, with its stretch marks, widened hips, and still slightly flabby belly. I do not like my body now the way that I once did, do not trust its sexual power the way that I once did, do not have faith in the responses my body once drew.

I know that another man in my life is not in the cards for a variety of reasons, and that one as alphic as the Navigator would be a disaster to the delicate balance of my polyamory.
I know these things, and I do not regret the life I have chosen.

But tonight, I will let myself remember the warmth of his arms around me, the conscious tenderness of his kiss, and the hot metal and male scent of his skin rubbed into mine.

Subspace and consent

I've been browsing Fetlife today, and come up with some amusing threads. The one that is most interesting at the moment concerns subspace and consent.

Basically, the OP disagrees with the whole, "I was in subspace so I can't be held responsible for my actions and anything bad that happened is ALL YOUR FAULT."

So rather than dive into the transient and argumentative world of the forums, I'm going to articulate my thoughts here, relatively permanently stored, and let you argue with them if you want :)

Caveat the first- I refuse to define subspace for anyone other than myself.

Caveat the second- for me, when I bottom, I go into an altered state of consciousness.

Now, that altered state of consciousness, for me, is a lot like being drunk. I enter it mostly knowingly (every once in a while that 3rd drink hits harder than expected, or that really good term of, ahem- endearment- whispered just right in your ear sends you sliding under), I get really, really suggestible, and I am willing to do things I don't usually find enjoyable otherwise.

However, please note the distinctions:

I enter it knowingly, and therefore have the responsibility beforehand to choose a partner who knows what will happen and whom I can trust to be responsible for my welfare while I'm temporarily less capable of doing so.

Note my wording, by the way- less capable, not incapable.

I become suggestible, which does not mean "completely open to any influence," for those who are too lazy to look it up. The judge will not let you off for drunk driving just because someone else allowed you to have your keys, and I won't excuse you from being irresponsible simply because someone else was present and suggested it.

I am willing to do things I'd otherwise not. That doesn't mean I'll have sex with a complete stranger, let someone cut off parts of my body, or otherwise do something really stupid. It means that I will enjoy rougher sex than usual, accept a harder beating than usual, etc. It doesn't mean I'll let something completely out of character happen- it means that I'm willing to push my usual interests a little farther.

So, let's recap, shall we?

For me, subspace means that the person I already know and trust can suggest to me that we push my current interests a little farther.

It does not mean that anyone can convince me to do something I would then later classify as assault of any kind.

....don't get me wrong, Lucivar once debated digging my eye out with a knife and I'd probably have let him in the headspace I was in, but I also knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if he did he'd find a way to fix it.

And THAT, my friends, is the key difference.

Hot water and sisterhood

Sitting yesterday afternoon in the Korean sauna I go to, I was struck by a realization.

Let me first give you a picture of the space: walking into the bathing area in the women's locker room, the lights dim and you enter a space that is exclusively feminine, a space no man may enter.

To one side are showers, where women of varying ages and bodies scrub down before entering the hot, tepid, and cold pools, the dry and wet saunas, the UV-ray area, or paying for a massage or body scrub. Women sit beside each other, laughing and talking and scrubbing one anothers' backs and washing one anothers' hair.

I am soaking in the hot pool, letting my injured shoulder float languidly and take the pressure off of my healing clavicle and it's intrusive, supportive titanium pin. Gigi floats beside me, her beautiful red hair plastered close to her classical face by the heat, and we simply lie together for a while, not this moment in direction contact but connected by a sense of feminine community.

Around us, throughout the bathing area, are women. Aged women with baby-fine skin and long, low breasts showing the marks of childrearing. Thin women with tight stomachs and pert,small breasts. Heavy women with rounded bellies and deep, wide thighs. Women with long, glossy black hair and golden skin. Women with waist-length locks and rounded buttocks. Deep brown skin, golden skin, pale skin. Hair in every shade from red to brown to black to blonde, a rainbow of tattoos and piercings sitting alongside conservative Asian women. It is a rainbow of women in every shade and every style, in a community which is connected without needing words.

Even children are here, running freely under the indulgent eyes of their mothers and grandmothers and aunts, and every other woman in the room. Here, they learn community, learn the diversity of their gender and the beauty of every body. Here they laugh and bathe and soak and learn that their bodies are safe spaces, homes for their souls and places in which they live.

It is also a curiously asexual space. No, asexual is wrong. A as a prefix means "without", and this space is not without sex. It is non-sexual. Sex simply has no place here. It is... irrelevant, for lack of a better word. Even I, one of the most sexual creatures I know, look at the bodies around me- a smorgasboard in another place or time- and see only sisters, not lovers.

It is a curiously comforting sensation, to bathe in a potent brew of hot water and community.

Caveat: I am aware that the Asian spas (at least those I've visited) are transphobic places, and I understand that my use of them is an exercise of cisgendered privilege. I'm sorry, my trans friends.

An evening's thought

I want the boys who are wounded.

I want the boys who are wounded, but not so that I can heal them.
I want the boys who are wounded, so that I can lick the bloody tears
from their skin.

Wounded Healers

“Without your wound where would your power be? It is your very remorse that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of men. The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living. In Love’s service only the wounded soldiers can serve.” -Thornton Wilder

My best friend, who is well on his way to becoming a priest, gave a sermon today with this quote as its basis.

As always, it put tears in my eyes.

I have wounds. Some scarred over, and some still healing. A few bleed even now.

I have wounds. And yet, I am the one to whom many turn for healing, for safety, for trust and love.

For years, I wondered why. Did they think me unwounded? More whole than they? Surely not, when I have allowed my wounds to show for years now and it hasn't slowed the flow of requests, but truthfully sped it up (my academic studies have also influenced that, of course...).

So, I'm left seeking another answer. Why? Why would someone come to a wounded healer? Physician, heal thyself.

A doctor who treats herself as a fool for a patient.

Why would they come to me?

And then he showed me this quote, a few years ago.

"In love's service, only the wounded soldiers may serve."

In love's service, only the wounded soldiers may serve.

Only the wounded soldiers.

Only the wounded healers.

My wounds haven't made me less fit to heal, to serve, to teach.

They've made me more.

"Without your wound, where would your power be?"

Without your wound, where would your compassion be?

"It is your very remorse that makes your low voice tremble in the hearts of men."

It is your very fear, your very wounds, that show that you know, you understand, and you care.

"The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on earth as can one human broken on the wheels of living."

Your wounds stand as testament to your knowledge, to your compassion, to your understanding of their pain.

"In love's service, only the wounded... (healers) may serve."

The First Law is not to obey

Have you ever read the Anne Bishop, "The Realms of the Blood" books?

If you're a dominant woman, or a submissive man, then I suggest that you do.

You see, maybe you're different from me, dear reader. But that's what I want.

I want a submissive who understands what this passage means:

"The first law is not to obey. The first law is to honor, cherish, and protect. The second law is to serve, and the third law is to obey."
"What if the third interferes with the first two?"
"Then you throw it out the window"
-Lucivar to Daemon, "Queen of the Darkness," by Anne Bishop

I want a submissive who understands that sometimes service means saying, "I respectfully refuse to let you push yourself too hard/make yourself sick/do something stupid."

There's a wonderful line in one of the "Realms of the Blood," books, which I will paraphrase rather than looking up:

"The Queens protect us. That's why sometimes we have to protect them- especially from themselves."

What I want- and what I need- is someone who can understand what that line means.

Sufi Night

I am happy tonight. Simply content, and full of quiet, bubbling joy.

I watched Sufis dance tonight, creating sacred space and drawing closer to God through music and movement. Their drums echoed off the sides of the buildings around them, and their bare feet pounded in time as they followed centuries-old mystic visions in a small urban park.

It was beautiful, their voices a reedy counterpoint to the deep thump of the djembes while the women in brightly colored silks handed out food to the homeless to celebrate dusk during the sacred month of Ramadan.

When I heard the drums, and saw these African men dancing, my first thought was they were performing ritual, creating sacred space, safe space to celebrate sorrow and strength. In my ethnocentric way, I assumed that they were African-American, and that their sacred space was a celebration of their mixed history here in my city in the Deep South.

I was wrong, and I was right. They were creating sacred space, but there was far more joy than sorrow to it, and I was blessed to be allowed to let it wash over me, healing me and bringing me joy and peace.

I walked to the train station is a state of bubbling joy, carrying on a beautiful conversation with a Sufi man about the nature of God and Love and Salvation, and came home to this house which I love, shared a walk with my four-legged daughter, and am curled up now with a pot of my favorite tea and my homemade Black Forest scones with butter and blackberry jam.

Tonight is a gift from a loving Universe.

Thank you.

Not the sexy- drugs and politics

In my "Social Problems" class, we're talking about drugs, about their use, abuse, prosecution, and the potential for decriminalization.

It's hard to be objective about this. It's really hard.

Drug abuse has fucked my life up- badly. My mother was an alcoholic, and because of her many, many DUIs, she spent the majority of my childhood either in the hospital or prison. Later, as a teen, despite the fact that I have never touched an illegal drug (unless you count the occasional rum'n'coke with my father as a teen), cocaine took my brother, my lover, my home, my job, my car, and nearly my career in the military. Even now, the specter of addiction, and the mistakes of both myself and my loved ones haunt me.

And yet... and yet... I pride myself on my objectivity, and now that my wounds are healing a little (a very little!), I'm learning to look at drug use with a less fearful eye. (It helps to have a lover who's experimented with every drug under the sun!)

The evidence is mounting that marijuana is significantly less dangerous than cigarettes or alcohol, and that it can have great effectiveness in helping to treat the nausea and discomfort associated with chemotherapy, as well as other maladies. Certainly, while driving 'high' is not to be recommended, I've never seen evidence that its any worse than driving drunk- which is also illegal, and likely to remain that way!

It's well-known that the prison-industrial complex makes billions of dollars a year, and nearly as well-known that nearly half of American inmates are incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses. It's a matter of common sense that a reputab;e liquor vendor will refuse to sell alcohol to a minor, and that an average street vendor of illegal drugs will not. One might also consider that while hundreds of billions of dollars are spent on the "War on Drugs", drug use among teens has been holding steady for years, with nearly half of American teens admitting to having experimented with drugs at some point in their lives.

Clearly, my personal distast for drug use aside, the War on Drugs is failing, and we as society failing to come to grips with it.

Certainly Holland's policy of decriminalization and compassionate care for addicts has actually led to a decrease in criminal acitivity and even a decrease in drug use.

Would this work in the US? I'm afraid I'm not far enough along toward my sociology degree to answer this with any accuracy. American culture and Dutch culture are dissimilar, and the sizes and populations of our respective countries are very different.

One thing, however, is clear: American drug policy doesn't work.

My men

I'm thinking of old memories tonight, old lovers and yes new ones, too.

I'm thinking of the scent of Wolf's hands on my skin, and the way that Lucivar's eyes look when he touches me.

I'm thinking of the sweet-sharp ache that they both leave in my heart without ever realizing it.

I'm thinking about the men I love tonight, and about the ones whom I've let go. I'm thinking about the Ranger, who never knew the difference he made in my life, and about Fox, my erstwhile brother whom I will likely never see again.

I'm thinking tonight, thinking about that ache in my heart and what makes it worthwhile. Thinking about the warm circle of safety that my Jack's arms create around me, and about the gleeful evil in USB's eyes.

Goddess of Light and Darkness, I love these men in my life. I love the depth of surrender in Kat's eyes before I punished him that night, and the overflowing love in Joseph's the morning I made him his birthday cake.

I love these men who love me, who hurt me, who heal me, who leave me and who stay with me.

I'm thinking of the depth of Nevoc's trust in me, and the despair on Devilpup's face before he left.

I am thinking of my men, and those who aren't my men anymore.

I am thinking of the sweet-sharp ache in my heart, and of those who put it there, whether witting or un-.

Alone tonight

My home feels lonely tonight, with you gone- less like a home than a house. Another house, another set of walls and floors that I'll have to leave one day.

My home feels lonely tonight, even the sunset cold and grey. I am sick, I have been for days now, and perhaps it's only the fever that's making me maudlin, sad, vulnerable.

Alone.

I don't want to be alone tonight, don't want the thoughts crowding into my mind and chewing at me like a school of pihrana. I don't want to face my cold bed with it's empty nest of sheets and blankets.

I want you here with me tonight, want your hands on my skin and your lips soft on my face as you promise me that it will be all right.

Promise me.

Lie to me.

Promise me.

I don't want to be alone tonight.

BoiGirlBoiGirl

I am thinking about gender again, thinking about who I am on the inside of my head.

A boi

A girl

A woman

I won’t say a man, because my masculine side isn’t as fully formed. I think of him as a boi, an adolescent, not as a man. He, and I, am not a man. We are a boi still, and that is all right. We have a great deal of learning and growing to do together, first.

I was born a woman, and I like my biological sex. I enjoy the weight of my breasts in my hands, the feel of my hand cupping my mons. I like the smooth skin of my stomach and the high line of my cheekbones.

But I am also a boi on the inside… sometimes. Much of the time.

I am a boi in my linear, problem-solving thinking, and in the length of my strides when I walk. I am a boi in my stubbornness, in my willingness to be the pursuer in my relationships. I am a boi in my obsession with fucking him, my love of simply bending him over and taking him.

I am a woman, and I am a boi. I am not transgender, but I am genderqueer. Sometimes.

But even when I am at my most feminine, the boi sits in the back of my mind, watching, commenting, and sometimes laughing.

I tried on a wedding dress, with the beautiful Miss Gigi, and for about 15 seconds I gloated over how lovely I looked… and then the boi in my head freaked out, saw that white dress as a denial of himself, and we went and changed back into my unisex clothing- a tshirt and blue jeans.

I will not lie, I am afraid of the boi in my head. I am afraid of what he means to my feminine self. He frightens me, and this is the only place where I express him. But he is here, and he is me, and I must learn to accept him… and myself.

Sober

Last night, as we were lying in bed, Jack was listening to music- "Tool," actually. "Sober," specifically.

A man sang it to me once, 6 and a half years ago, sitting in my little green Volvo on a cold winter's night.

There's a shadow just behind me

Shrouding every step I take

Making every promise empty

Pointing every finger at me

Joseph.

I bonded him out of jail, at a cost I don't like to contemplate now.

I brought him into my home, into the apartment I'd secured.

I sat beside him in court, and I held his hand. I promised him that I would keep him safe.

Jesus, won't you fucking whistle

Something but what's past and done?

Jesus, won't you fucking whistle

Something but what's past and done?

On his 34th birthday, I made him a birthday cake- butter recipe yellow with homemade chocolate frosting. The same cake I'd made for my own recent 18th birthday.

The day I bonded him out of jail, he walked into the restaurant where we worked, straight back into the kitchen. He wrapped his arms around me and lifted me off the ground, exclaiming, "Baby! You have no idea how much I love you right now!"

I had just signed on his $15,000 bond, and he'd promised me that he wouldn't leave.

I am just a worthless liar

I am just an imbecile

I will only complicate you

Trust in me and fall as well

I remember the night that the man OD'd in our complex. Fox, my brother, had seen him first, but Joseph was the first one to run down. He cared for the man until the ambulance that we called arrived. Afterwards, we went to Waffle House.

He told me that he was a cocaine addict. He never lied to me about that- he told me that he never forgot about it, never stopped craving it.

I will find a center in you

I will chew it up and leave

I will work to elevate you

Just enough to bring you down

I remember the last night that I saw him, although I hadn't known then that it would be. He took me out on the motorcycle which he and my brother shared- my brother also lived with us, and I was supporting them both- to the Botanical Gardens, and we talked there for hours.

He told me that I needed to stop trying to be so much of an adult, that I needed to lighten up and be young. I remember laughing bitterly, thinking that I was the only one contributing to my little household, and if I wasn't an adult then who would be? He told me a lot of things, but I don't remember most of them.

But I remember him telling me that I was beautiful, and that I was too young to try to be so old.

Trust me

Trust me

Trust me

Trust me

Trust me

Last night, I listened to, "Sober," and I cried. I saw his laughing black eyes, remembered the taste of the ceviche he made for me. I remembered the heat of his skin as he slept beside me, and picture of his daughter he'd kept on the mirror in our apartment's bathroom. I remembered the scent of his leather jacket when I wore it to school because I didn't have another one, and the look on his face when I presented him with his birthday cake. I felt his hand smacking my butt as he and my brother taught me to wait tables, and remembered the bitterness in his eyes when our manager fired him for being arrested and missing 3 weeks of work.

I remember the night that I realized that he was gone. The night that I realized that he wasn't coming back, that he had left and left me with a $15,000 bail bond hanging over my head. I remember how long that I cried, the detectives showing up at my door early in the morning int he hopes that they would find him sleepy and tousled in my bed. I remember how angry that I was, how betrayed. I remember my brother asking me if I'd really expected him to stay, and his look of shock when I replied simply, "He promised."

Why can't we not be sober?

I just want to start this over

Why can't we sleep forever?

I just want to start this over

Betrayal

LtCol David Grossman refers to interpersonal violence as the “universal human phobia”. He says that it scares people more than spiders, more than snakes, more than *gasp* public speaking. He discusses, in chapter 2, how betrayed we feel when we are confronted with interpersonal violence, because it doesn’t fit out world-view.

I love that look of betrayal. I love that expression of shock- the widened eyes, dilated pupils, open mouthed shock and betrayal- when I am violent to them. I want that betrayal right now.

I want to see you kneeling on the floor for me, to stroke your skin gently, speaking lovingly, just before the open-handed smack across the face- the one that I put my whole arm into, that snaps your head to one side. I want to watch your eyes fill with involuntary tears behind the shock and betrayal. It isn’t supposed to be like this, your eyes will say. You’re supposed to warn me before you hurt me.

No, I’m not. Not today. Today I want to watch you recoil from me, watch your fear and confused not-quite-anger-yet, watch you search your mind frantically for anything you might have done to explain this sudden pain, to legitimize this violence.

Silly boy, search for a way to legitimize my violence. You understand now how a rape victim feels when she searches her mind for what she might have done to invite her attack.

Legitimize my violence, while I watch you. I can see the thoughts racing through your mind, searching for a reason why I’ve hit you.

You don’t get it yet. I’m hitting you like rape- it’s because I like it, because I like the power and your response, and because I like the violence.

I want to hit you, and I want to watch your face go tight with shock and betrayal.

First day

Today is my first day back in class in much too long a time. I am taking 18 credit hours this semester, and I'm thrilled with it.

But for now, on the first day, I'm bored to tears by the usual introductory speeches. I'm supposed to be engaging my brain, thinking about how to look at the world sociologically, and pull myself back to see the big picture.

What I'm thinking about, instead, is Jack. I'm thinking about the taste of his skin on our bedsheets. I'm thinking about the curve of his ass when he sleeps on his stomach, about the feel of it beneath my hand when I run my palm over his body. I'm thinking about the scent of his mouth on mine, and the way that his fingers clench on my skin when we kiss. I'm thinking about the press of his body against mine and the taste of his sweat as he moves inside of me.

I'm thinking about the feeling of his skin beneath my nails as my body spasms around him, about the curve of his body against mine when I spoon him- the warmth of him against my abdomen and groin. I'm thinking about the taste of his lips, like sweet and spicy tea, and the way that they give beneath my teeth.

I'm thinking about the man who will be my lover, when all others are gone.

Not the sexy

In the depths of night, we count the lives our actions have cost, but we are not given to know the number we have saved. -Anonymous

It's easy to count the cost of the lives you've taken, the hearts you've wounded. They are clearly visible, obvious in the harsh light of self-reflection. The remembered tears in a lover's eyes when you hurt them, the cold cast of the dead man's skin whom you couldn't save. It's terribly easy, in the deepest darkness of night, to count the cost of the lives you've taken and the hearts you've wounded. Your nightmares show you clearly the accusing eyes of the dead, the weeping voices of people you've harmed- whether witting or unwitting. Your memories in the dark of night offer you a litany of faces, of names, and endless stream of, "I should have's".

But it is not given to use to know the lives we've saved, the hearts we've mended all unwitting. No one knows, in the dark of night, how many lives they've turned around with a kind word, or how many hearts they've mended with courtesy and respect. No one knows the number of lives they've saved by giving the keys to a friend when drinking, or being the friend who's stayed sober. We don't know the lives we've saved by sitting and listening to someone who's hurting, or stopping to help someone on the side of the road.

We don't know whose lives we've changed by being courteous and treating people kindly... and perhaps teaching them, all unwitting, how they deserve to be treated. We don't know whose wounds we've healed simply by being an unjudgemental ear.

The soldier knows only those lives he's taken, and it is they which haunt him in the hours before dawn. He knows the deaths which follow him, knows the accusing eyes of the comrades he couldn't save. But it is not shown to him the lives he saved, the attacks his presence thwarted, or the laughs of the children who will grow up because of him.

It is given to us the burden to count our dead, that we might be more gentle in our lives- but only the Gods can count those we've saved.

Musings

Vulnerable. Curled up, curled in. Hiding. Emotions askew, rampaging, until my Self seeks sanctuary in sleep. There, my dreams are quieter things and less hostile than the waking world.
Safety in loving arms in my dreams: no decisions to be made, no problems to solve.
For just a day, someone else to hold me safe, someone else to keep the pain at bay. Someone else to understand the agony of functioning when the body’s pain is too deep, and every step is like a knife. Someone else to be the safe one, the shelter. Someone else to keep the phone on, nearby, every moment. Someone else to be the rational one, the reasonable one. Someone else to sort the emotional tangles in my head.

Where is safety when it is you, and you are weak? Where is comfort, when it is you, and you are frightened? Where is understanding, when it is you and you are confused?

It is in the arms of the lover, but where is that, when the lover isn’t there?