risk.

let’s take a moment to talk about risk, shall we?

the act of putting oneself on the line, sharing and aching and wanting and hurting and reveling together in the pure ecstasy found only in finding each other.

that’s a lot of shit.

and this, the shit, is the piece that keeps us from knowing, from loving each other. what a delicious puzzle it could be, searching for the pieces, watching as they fall delicately into place— the miseries, the tragedies, the eccentricities and idiosyncrasies that stack perfectly, one on top of the other, until they create a body. a body that is then pressed and pulled, sculpted carefully and deliberately until it becomes, uniquely and undeniably, 

Hers. 

what a delicious puzzle it could be, this discovering. the body breathes and moves. she searches and reaches and grows and wants. this woman, though immeasurably resilient and capable, will want. will need. 

she’ll need a man.

a real one. a man who will have her and hold her, one who won’t back down. who will will love her harder with each reveal, respect the complexity of her upbringing, get lost in the fibers of her heart. 

a man who won’t walk away

a man who won’t bow out, gracefully or otherwise.

he won’t use her.

he won’t hurt her.

he won’t stop her from being the perfectly crazy and fucked up being she’s spent her whole life so carefully creating. 

she’ll shine her light and he’ll meet her in the midst of it.

he’ll be a beacon, a safe haven, a home away from home again and again, until she knows no other home but this. 

she’ll make her home in the folds of his shirts, the tambour of his voice. 

that familiar loneliness will be gone.

the familiar ache of doubt will take up residence elsewhere.

the walls will soften

her heart will open

suddenly “i” will become “we.”

“me” becomes “us.”

and there is nothing but hope on the horizon.