Butter

All of a sudden, something has switched, a light has flicked on- not changing anything in the room, just casting a different light on it all.

Something happened. There was no way I could have known but like an asteroid on path- no question as to its bull's-eye route, imperceptibly, we pummeled gently into each other's paths and came to a slow, gradual halt face to face. Like a boat docking, sliding right into place, unaware of its path until it arrived, like butter, he slipped into my open hands.

Serendipity- upon arrival- transposes into fate. And genetics, wrapping, spindeling around each other in a sudden vacuum, when tapped into just right, lines up to reveal something worth having faith in, this godly languish, this limp, strangely empowered resignation.

Like a page torn off and placed in a puddle, the space behind the words I read, is saturated and dappling with my lovely lovely.

He finds his way into most crowds and the transcient opalescence, my diaphanous darling, of an embellished imagination outshines these charcoal sketches of skin. Reality plus one- my favored picture.

My first new leave was a welcomed respite. The smell of his aftershave was replaced by the completely different but equally pleasant smell of fresh sheets in a guest bed and the warm dead weight of the house's dog nestled between my legs. I stretched myself out, immediately absorbing the role of companionship. The very short time I spent laying in bed before falling asleep was kept in the best possible company by and amongst myself as I realized, again and again, that I am my favorite companion. Reconnecting with that after recontextualizing for a brief bit amongst someone else- laying on my side talking to him as if I were saying all these things out loud for the first time. My own thoughts sounded new and revealing as I took them out for him to see. That familiarity and comfort that my relationship with myself is blanketed by, is removed as I open up my own coveted ecosystem to this new stimulus to see if something new can be introduced without disrupting the current homeostatic balance.

It's an interesting challenge, a dissonance between wanting the company of someone else without losing the company of myself. I don't know how to emphasize enough the companionship I have with myself, how completed I feel alone. Maintaining that with someone else- keeping both relationships intimate and strong without compromising or withholding from either- integration not replacement.

I've never allowed someone in, found someone so close to me, tapping into me just right- cleaving me open in a straight clean cut from the outside in. It was never a question. It was never a choice. Those two relationships have never come face to face before, that boundary line never blurred. But blindly, I've stumbled upon the one chemical that is able to softly, sweetly erode my marble walls, sloughing off effortlessly like shudden sheets of tissue paper. And now I stare at the ceiling, the room breathing with me, goading me on, thinking, "What have I done?"