there's no action we take without risk attached to it.
every time i read a poem i risk my life. mary ruefle said that, and it's true. i would sit at the very top of a tree and risk the fall. i would cross the road in full boar traffic and risk the accident for a small chance at understanding of someone or myself.
it's more about love than death—or is it? my friend once told me the first thing two people must do in a conversation is establish that they won't kill each other. i realized that's another truth. strange, and true.
some days i'm more aware of this than others.
some days i have trouble sending a message;
other days i'm able to get on stage and practice vulnerability.
these are often the same day.
usually, i'm sitting on the porch and thinking about who i want to be.
metrics in outer space. thoughts we cannot measure. it occurred to me that love is often jealousy. the more i consider, the more love becomes envy—envy of bravery, stories, and charisma—of unawareness towards these at all, or, at least, the ability to feign naivety.
i wish i could be braver, and i love those who already are.
the pandemic came, and i lost something i was already losing. people are speaking a language i don't understand anymore. i find risk in relationships—like baring my shoulders in a place of worship. something holy that could burn you.
the eyes of someone i want to learn how to love sting a little bit.
ultimately, there is no way to move forward alone, and every relationship demands bravery and nurturing. if we don't take up the risk of leaving everything out on the table—the table being the feast of people i have yet to meet—then we never breach the surface.
every shiny golden thing is right where we hit the water.
every honesty is hovers below what the light can touch,
and this is where it is necessary to risk everything.
the reality is impermanence.
people come and go like wildflowers on the side of the road. still, we tend to them best as we can before distance or time takes it's lofty place. despite despite despite, it's necessary to pour in the love guaranteed to be lost.
i'm trying to understand the way we lose things. i'm turning loss over in my hand like foreign currency. and it turns out nothing is ever lost, just transformed. maybe many of us have heard this before: "let me sing to you now, of how people change into other things.”
while i'm sitting on the porch, thinking about who i want to be, i think of others: those i find wonderful, those i aspire towards.
they are bird feather against the teeth of a lion, bold enough to strike after another winter. the beak plummeting into knowing another human being.
and, this is why i end up almost-crying. i do end up crying. i've said this only twice before.