Like a scientist, I’m out to prove my own theories.
I have this theory that I don’t need anyone, that I have independence sussed to such an extent I could be the last human on earth and I wouldn’t fucking miss you.
I might miss your reaction to the clever things I say, but they’ll be funny if you’re here or not.
I might miss the way your hands look on the insides of my knees as you spread me wide and dive inside, but I see it just as clear when I close my eyes, even if it feels a little different. A little more empty. A little more lonely. A little more lost. I wish it weren’t true, but I’d be lying if I said I don’t want you there, now and then.
Between my legs, between my ears, between the layers of my skin. Curling around the parts of me that beat and feel and remember what good it does to let someone in. Even for a brief, yet epic moment. When moments become something that can be described as epic, I know I’m doing something right.

I have this theory that I don’t require the opinions of others to feel good about myself. That theory is proving difficult to prove true. I write a thing and I’m only thinking of how it sounds in my mind, in my words, on my tongue, half of the time. The other half is thinking about how it sounds on your lips, on your screen, in your voice, in your reality. Does it resonate? Did I touch you? Will you reach back and let me know? Do I need you to? Or can I just be satisfied to know that it happened? If that were true, why would I come back time and time again to peruse the stats, to check how many saw, how many liked, how many said so?
But that’s okay too. The pleasure comes from sharing, from knowing that another takes pleasure from it too. There is no shame in hoping that the thing shared is giving as much as it’s getting.
Viral?
No thank you.

Spiral?
Oh yes.
Yes please.
All of the yes.
Please.
Because it’s starts here, it starts small, nearly incoherent, this spark, this grain of intent, this minuscule offhand remark made buoyant or drowned in this wine glass, depending on whether I was inhaling or exhaling at the time.
This spiral. This golden spiral that starts with something so small and radiates out until, expansive and all encompassing, I can’t see it anymore. I live within the shadow of it, regardless of it’s lack of dark. Every moment it doubles, every chance it has to wrap up the thing that came before and beget something so much more, it does so.
What will it be? What will be the thing that grows from in to out and back again?
Will it be habits cultivated as a result of thoughtless enterprise?
A configuration of this is how we’ve always done it regardless of how well it’s still working?
A conflagration of burn it down and rebuild on the ashes of mistakes remembered clearly enough to never be made again?
A cozy combination of the two, wrapped in a mindful mosaic of balance between the good for me and the soon to be better?
I am a scientist, creating a reality there is no template for.
I am an artist, dreaming into being a creation that has room for anything I might deem necessary.
I am a poet.
However they existed before, I breathe words into being so they can have a place to play. Because words love to play. They crave this life we imbue them with, they desire to be used, to be conveyed, to be spoken. Not only with voice, but with touch and taste and laughter and looks.

To radiate all the way out
and carry us home.