You

I have no idea if I will feel this way a thousand times over. I hope not. The pain stings like something too sharp. You sat across from me nights ago displaying all your worst traits. Drunk, angry for silly reasons, short on good logic, long on cutting words. But this didn't stop me, didn't keep me from wanting you. I wanted to crawl into your lap and run my fingers thru your beard and nuzle my nose in your curly hair. I wanted it so bad that it took all the strength in the world to hang on to my chair. I hugged you tight and breathed in your smell but let you walk away. Strength, courage, pain. Breath it out.  I want you because you make me laugh, I want you because you roll around in intelectual topics with the same fervent need for academic logic. I want you because you can talk about all of it with clear bold honesty, wading thru it all with boots on ready for the emotional muck.  You admit to your flaws and mine with compassion that feels like creamy soup, smooth and warm. We have some sort of genuineness that is not easily packaged. I keep spending time with other men wondering if thier smell could ever intoxicate me as yours does. Looking for someone whose smell I want for breakfast, whose conversation I want for lunch and whose skin I want for dinner. I keep waiting for some sign that another is possible. But I can't seem to find it. Help me lord if you are the only one that I can't unstick from. Help me lord if you are the only drug that gets me high. 

Catch me

Today is one of those days. Nerves fried to fierce ends. Hanging on to the edge of a cliff as I alone battle to finish the project of my life. Fighting mafia and battling against time I swim upstream alone. I am single handedly holding up the universe on one finger. I am strong and fierce and more capable than most, but I want nothing more than to collapse in safe arms. Arms that will have me, and hold me, and brush away the worries of the day. I don't have this, I am left to hold up the world and trust that I am enough alone. I am strong enough and I can manage this, but what I would do for a soft lap, a sweet hand in my hair and someone to accept my worries without judgement. Having him across town but unhavable only concentrates this feeling like a bullion cube yearning for hot water.

Why does he not share this feeling of need for soft comfort? Is there really someone else that is better? 

There must be. Let my faith survive the hard edges of day and live to see the comfort and acceptance of another. 

Step back, wait for him

Tonight in salsa class as we were practicing the cuban rueda, I was reminded of the power of waiting. "Ladies" the bubly gay balinese dance instructer chiped. "Please remember to let the man come to you. Keep doing your normal step. Step back and he will be there to spin you to the next step."

As someone who prides myself in making things happen in mylife I was happy to be reminded that relationships are really more of a dance. Less about making somthing happen and more about holding space for something to happen. He will come to me if he likes me enough. If I step back and he likes me he will step forward to meet me.

If a man is not stepping forward, swiftly grabbing my waist and spinning me toward him, I do not want him.  Grab my waist and spin me round. Do it, I dare you. 

Butterflies and the like

I spent part of a day with a boy who makes my stomache flutter. I am totally unclear why. Do butterflies mean something or are they just nature telling me to sample his sperm for genetic suitability and have no bearing on cultural compatability? I think I allready know what is wrong with him. He is another one who can't attatch. Unfixable. Also, his sense of order would ensure he hated me and my disorder once the oxcytocin wore off. But there were butterflies. Isn't that worth something? Or should it be discarded. 

Friends who I know who are dating plainly shouldn't be. The girl coos and looks on with awe at all that is hansome about the man. But the man looks to me like he is missing butterflies. Like there is a hole in his stomach and they all flew the coop in search of someone else. He is a sweet man who likes the company enough and doesn't want to hurt her that he may just decide to stick it out. 

I know what a real relationship feels like, one that drudges thru paying bills and dirty diapers and still enjoys the sweet comfort of a conversation after a long dirty day. But I also know what 17 years feel like when there were no butterflies to start. I think maybe you need the butterflies. I think they maybe should not just be cocooned worms upon first meeting but allready have shead thier crystalis and be swarming about madly. 

The man who just broke up with me did so I believe because no butterflies were present. He feared our friendship would not carry us without them. I forgive you sweet friend and wish a bit with pain in my heart that I could have delivered you soft swooping wings painted in many colors filling your belly and tickling your heart. I lacked that power. 

I have no idea how I am meant to sort thru a pile of humans for butterflies and a good resume but I am starting to think that maybe it is the butterflies and not the resume that really count. 

There is a man who I have gone out with a few times and somehow I imagine I should like based on his resume. Despite searching at each coffee date under rocks and behind trees I find not even one odd winged creature. 

Firelies in the wild mate by flashing. The female stays on the ground and flashes a patern and the male flies around looking at the flashes and flashing his own pattern. If they like each others flashes they mate. 

I am currently wandering around searching in the dark for the right flashing that sends wings a loft inside me. May we both feel this together may we also have something worth talking about once the winged creatures are sleeping.