Other

and then there was that other thing
that last element, unspoken here.
Outside my front door, he built a ramp up to my window, and I watched him through a cloud of plastic bags.
He peered at me while I cut 2' by 4's, dissapeared back in to my universe.
We stayed later and later, each in our own artist tornado,
until finally one night, I let him in my space, and we didn't leave.

I am complicit even in those ways of loving others that I have so much lamented,
in looking with affection at that man.
a MAN
who is kind to me and slightly taller.
I cannot escape any of the systems that I believe (want to bellieve?) are wrong, those systems are in me.
Sometimes they feel right for a minute or a day or week, and then I get so scared.

I tried hard to make something that was not about Beautiful.
I know I could make it look pleasing to me- the challenge was, really, how deeply could I learn?
And months of spiraling in to that learning that felt so heavy, that made me so anxious and mean and scared,
then-
We were sitting on my bridge, I was hunched over, with the stapler.
I looked up, and it was beautiful.
We were sitting there together and I was smiling.

What does it mean to look at him lovingly in that place I made to empower myself? Does it weaken that intensity?

The project is done, now, he helped me rip it apart.
Some things were too heavy for me, I felt ashamed.
He took a sledge hammer to the bridge, and we both cried.
This is not what I expected, this is not what I thought I wanted. is this what I think I want?

The project is done, now, and he is still here. It is beautiful, I am so lucky, and/yet/but/therefore I am scared that ultimately, I have just given in.
Why is this so hard for me?
Perhaps that difficulty is sign that this is so much learning, and it is a good learning. And so, I have to feel that despite The Problematic, it is also Teh Good