The word 'freedom'

More and more,

I recognize that bodies are inconsequential.

You, and your body, are lovely.

But more than this-- your mind captivates me with its complexities--

the way it betrays you, or you betray it.


I am always thinking, how can you let me know these things about you? Or more accurately, how do you give me the privilege of knowing you? The intricate far-away things that reside in the mysteries of you. The ones that are hidden behind clusters of veins and capillaries. Behind the bronchial tubes and even further than the depths that your lungs have capacity to inhale. Further still.

Count. One. Two.

How long can you hold it in?

Mysterious. I never could know and feel all of what you have.

More than this, I do not know how to give back in the same way other than choosing apt times to reveal factoids of this thing or that thing that I was or am or feel.

But always with great care and intention. Always with an intentional gauge on what I am revealing, what it could mean, and what you could do with the information.

Will you weaponize it?
Will you stop loving me, and turn who I am into something that could hurt me?
Will you stop loving me and simply let this investment of heart and time become something that sets behind your heart instead of in it? Calcified into a structure resembling a body?

But you, have nothing but trust in what you reveal. Such abandon and honesty and disregard for the possibilities of pain.

I have a lot to apologize for, I feel. Or people to apologize for.

How much of the hatred that is rampant is mine to be responsible for?

I am embarrassed at the ease in which we celebrate the death of a stranger, laws that limit freedoms of people we know nothing about, the way we tout 'love' when it is only a thing we seem to be masquerading-- with strings and costs and dollar bills attached on the other side of the thin mask.

More than this, withdrawing and setting boundaries and painting layers and layers of lines on top of lines-- I feel coerced into apologizing for this.

Today I am excited for the future.

I am so blessed, and I am so aware of it.

I have so many people I love, and I have people that amaze me surrounding me, yet I am not trapped in any way.

I am happy, and open, and free to follow those dreams of mine literally to the ends of the earth.

Not a bad place to sit at 24.