The Perfect Day
Excerpt:
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"Shatter me," I cried. Please, I'm begging you. "Break me," I commanded, demanding death with certainty of need. "Hurt me with your passion. Take me, don't ask for permission."
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And abruptly another part of me came forward, my voice changing pitch and tune: "Honor me, care for me, see me, see the truth behind all the lies that I've told myself." This need for pain, this isn't me, but the mantle I've taken on, the process I was born to feel and play out. Play with me.
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Friday, October 2nd 2015
.In a fit of inspiration, I wrote to Mermaid:
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"You're talented, yes. I love your help. Fuck them bitches who don't see your worth, those losers who miss out on feeling gratitude for your gifts. I am honored by every bit of assistance you've lent me, by every time you've been a mirror that reflected back to myself the truth. I am honored in the etiquette you've taught me, your examples of how a life can be led, your elegance, your unashamed shifts in perspective, in personality. . . Your mind, your emotions are even more beautiful than your impossibly proportioned body. May you see yourself for the artwork you are, and may those that do not see fall away from your life like falling dominoes."
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Friday was the day Paladin was to leave Silverstag and drive back to Snowland. He'd delivered me on Tuesday, and we'd spent a few days together, the three of us our own unique version of a family. Hibiscus and Paladin went shopping together. I stayed at Hibiscus's house. It was cold and I had menstrual cramps. Going out with them didn't sound appealing, so I gave them my grocery list. Hibiscus spent money on me again, this time through Paladin. Hibiscus's generosity touched my heart and cradled me there, keeping me safe.
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In my bedroom I began reading The Kiss, the book Hibiscus had given me. The book's story brought me into deep feeling states and revelations. I recorded some of those revelations on my digital recorder, not wanting to get up and write my thoughts. A fly landed on me after a while and I put the book down and let myself feel. I breathed expansion into my ribcage, billowing myself like a sail of a boat. The wind caught, and I began to drift across the ocean of my emotion, through time, into the present.
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I began to sing. My voice rang true in a way it rarely did. I reached over and pressed the record button on my recorder without stopping my singing.
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Later I transcribed what I had sung so passionately, and so was able to provide the bits of my soul that came forth word for word.
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"My own buried treasure is the greatest gift you could ever give," I sung to Hibiscus in my empty room.
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"My soul hides from itself. I'm like an excavator, archaeologist digging for my own love." I rose from the bed, my voice gaining volume. "I'm like a bird made of icicles." I saw a phoenix turning from fire to ice. "Too cold to sense the wind in my wings. Too numb to feel my own victory." I've won, I thought, agreeing with myself. Just look at this place and this new life!
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"The teardrops of my love grace your skin like rivers of blood." Tears fell from the eyes of my inner goddess, racing their way through time to fall toward Hibiscus, tracing their way over the bodies of dancing women. The teardrops turned red and the fear-rooted, obsessive attachments that were my love were revealed, and still the pure poetry of the pieces fitting was music, was beauty, was perfection.
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"I will carve myself into you." I saw Hibiscus's heart before me, my hands like claws carving my name into him. His heart bled and mine sung. "I will make you bleed to prove my own value. I get satisfaction from reaction that proves I am real." The pain in my voice was another form of internal harmony. I savored the authenticity of my anguish, the aesthetics of my art, my broken heart beating with new life, love and liberation from pulsing patterns.
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"Make me breathe," I screamed. "Breathe me to life." I gasped, choking on air that I couldn't feel or find.
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"Shatter me," I cried. Please, I'm begging you. "Break me," I commanded, demanding death with certainty of need. "Hurt me with your passion. Take me, don't ask for permission."
.
And abruptly another part of me came forward, my voice changing pitch and tune: "Honor me, care for me, see me, see the truth behind all the lies that I've told myself." This need for pain, this isn't me, but the mantle I've taken on, the process I was born to feel and play out. Play with me.
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"All the lies became my truth." No facade stays fake for long. "My ego is my best friend, so she says." I was referring to Teal Swan.
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"I've divided and conquered myself." Every segment of myself that splinters off is another victory for my ego over my soul. This dance is not a battle - all casualties return to the fold and take their turns again . . . and again.
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"I want your passion, I want every evidence - prove to me my own validity - give me your money, show me, prove it - don't deceive me." The strength of my demand was only slightly undercut by the undercurrent of my fear. "Deceive me. Betray me, because if you don't, I won't believe you ever loved me." How could I believe in love without betrayal? Dad, how could you betray me like that?
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"I can only see myself as beautiful if I see destruction and crumbled bits of glass scattered to the winds as an example of perfection. I am learning to love myself through appreciation of the planet's decay." I am a masterpiece mess, a masterclass massacre, a masochistic mage.
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"I hear flyleaf's pain: 'Telling Layla's story spoke, bout how all her broken. She's glad for one day of comfort, only because she has suffered.'" I found that I didn't sing nearly so well when I sung the song of another. I crave my own song, my own truth, my own fitting reflection from my puzzling perspective.
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"Breathe. Breathe. If only I could breathe." I gasped again and focused on my breathing. Speaking softly, only somewhat musically, I said, "Is breathing a sense, a dimension, a layer all in itself? Who am I to judge? I don't believe in humility, your false concepts, your ideals. I deny my programming - yet I have to accept it to love myself and I don't even know where I am."
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My voice breaking I went on, "I was told maybe I should be asking when, when . . . When am I? When am I?" I felt haunted my selves. "I hide my past to not face my present and pretend . . . Will I know? Will I be able to create something more for my future? Or will I let myself fade?" My voice faded even as I spoke the words. "Don't let me disappear into insignificance. My false sense of self . . . something to feel . . ."
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Suddenly I realized how warm I was and began to take off layers of clothes. "When I'm alive, I am warm," I sung. I want to always be so warm, so unfiltered, so raw, so me.
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"How could anyone handle the real truth of an unfiltered soul?" I asked in self-pity. "Would it not burn?" How could I let myself scald you like that?
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"Wouldn't I like to make you burn?" I screamed. Let me burn you with my truth.
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"I can't handle the aftermath." I'm sorry dad. I shouldn't have told you I lost my virginity already when you tried to talk to me. I'm sorry Wolf. I should have been kinder, more present with my own love for you. I'm sorry you walked through fire for me. And yet I can't let myself feel this guilt. I can't. "Can't breathe in the smoke of the burning, the burning I caused with just being me."
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Wolf . . . Paladin . . . "Walking through the fire . . ." I'm following my own bliss. "Blaze, baby blaze."
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I saw Hibiscus again in my mind's eye. "I want to touch the fire of your soul and find the satisfaction of smoldering."
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I felt fire inside myself, and relished it. "I've reveled in every pain, don't let me lie to myself and say that I want to end it. I never did." I thought of my pleas at wanting death. "It's just a plea for help, it's all it's ever been - a plea to be seen. A plea to be seen." Because if you can't see me, I'd rather be dead, because living is only life when I'm seen.
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To be seen by two men. May I never lose the tools that allowed me to manifest this perfection for myself.
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Saturday, October 3rd 2015
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The next day I announced my relationship with Hibiscus to the polyamorous community that Mermaid, Otter, Polecat and others were a part of: "I'm happily in a relationship with a new partner as of September 9th. I'm currently staying with him at Silverstag through Thanksgiving. My husband and he are getting along very well, and building trust with one another. I feel more complete than I have in a long time, like I've completed my need for two parents who love me and accept me as I am. Many aspects of myself I have not been able to show to anyone else I've been able to share with both of these wonderful men.
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"I feel incredibly blessed and amazed that they both feel so blessed to have me even while sharing me! Magic!
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"Thank you so much to Mermaid for introducing me to this community and polyamory at large. Thank you so much to Otter for inviting me to stay at Silverstag and being such a good friend. It was on my third day at Silverstag that I got to know Otter's good friend and next-door neighbor, Hibiscus, who I can now easily see myself spending my life in parallel to.
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"Thank you Paladin for being open, accepting and supporting of my explorations and trusting my judgement. Thank you for seeing me, seeing my needs, and always letting me be free to go after what I want."
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Saturday evening I went with Hibiscus to a spiritual interaction-oriented dance with chanting and simple, synchronized movements. The theme of the night was "releasing" feelings, things, people, or anything else you needed to release that you felt no longer served you.
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We were each asked to share one word of something we were releasing. I said, "Elitism," thinking of how it was the one thing holding me back from simply accepting Hibiscus as he was.
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After saying the word I noticed my elitism more consciously. I noticed how I felt superior for saying a word nobody else had said. Several people said, "worry," "fear," "doubt," and "judgment." But my word was unique. I noticed my elitism in the way I felt proud of my ability to learn certain aspects of the dance better than others. I noticed my disappointment in myself when I couldn't get it exactly right.
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I noticed my pride even extended to what Hibiscus said, "Lack of faith." Inside my heart responded, your faith will grow. I will nourish it.
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The part of elitism I released was my need for Hibiscus to look like my preconceived idea of beauty. It had already been fading, and that scared me at times. What happens if I let myself accept a lesser standard? The answer seemed to be that it was easier to feel my own love for him overflowing my heart. I could look at him, unabashed, and be glad he was mine. And what if it isn't a lesser standard? What is he has been beautiful all along?
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After we returned to his house we quickly found our way into my bedroom. We stayed up late with one another again. I knew I needed to let him rest more for his health and safety, and yet I couldn't wish our late-night conversations undone.
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"Something in me is shifted - my trust has grown greater than my fears. My reservations have fallen away. I could write vows tonight and say them to you tomorrow without hesitation," I told him.
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Later he said, "I can one-up you with thoughts that over the top. More over-the-top than saying our vows tomorrow: Part of me is saying that we could have sex without a condom and you could have my baby."
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I laughed in a way that was also a cry, "Okay, but that's going to be a long shopping list!"
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He laughed.
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"Gosh, what am I saying? It's one thing to sell a kiss!"
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"And quite another to sell a baby," Hibiscus finished my sentence.
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I looked at his face in the dim lighting and found it fine again and again. How could it be that the same face I thought I could never see this way? How can this be? I touched him and found that my hands no longer hesitated. My hands told him that I accepted his stubble, that I cherished his shoulders, his forehead, his nose. My kisses told him that I loved the wrinkles under his eyes. My eyes told him that I didn't find his appearance offensive in the least, but rather only saw a man I loved very much.
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Looking at him, finding him fine and happy that he was mine, a thought bubbled into my consciousness. A cascade of emotions wound their way through my body, causing tremors and trembles in turn. I choose you, I thought. I saw his home, his body, his land, his energy, his thoughts and all that he represented to me and then I saw my home in Snowland - my parents, Paladin, Mermaid, my bed, my kitchen, my garden - and I realized that in the moment, if I had to choose . . .
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I moaned aloud in anguish. Oh, Paladin, I'm so sorry.
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"If I had to choose, I would choose you," I said, almost sobbing.
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Hibiscus crooned softly, a noise just as happy and sad as I felt. "Neither of us is going to make you choose."
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"I know," I said softly, "But now I know my answer, and it's frightening. It feels scary . . . and comforting."
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He sighed and enfolded me in his arms.
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I even like his smell. I've never liked the smell of a white man before, I thought. I recalled how jealous it made me that Paladin liked the smell of his first girlfriend - his only girlfriend before me - but didn't like my smell. He even told me he liked the smell of Mermaid. Yet not me.
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Saturday had begun with dancing in my room and progressed to conversations, cuddles and cum. We'd washed jars together and discovered a farm selling raw goat milk only twenty minutes away. "It doesn't taste goaty. I didn't know that was possible!" Hibiscus exclaimed, as wowed by this as I was by the proximity of the farm. I'm really safe. The universe really is taking care of me.
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Hibiscus showed me one of his paychecks. "I've never done this before," he said. "It's further evidence of how much more I trust you." I asked him what every item on it meant and he explained. My heart fluttered and my root chakra throbbed. I tried to listen to the words and hold onto the concepts intellectually. I finally know what a stock option is, I thought. Now please fill me with your cock.
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And then we went to the dance, and came home and I found myself finding him beautiful. "Three separate times today I've found myself thinking that I could die and be perfectly happy. This thought rarely crosses my mind at all, and yet today I've thought it on three separate occasions." It was a perfect day, a day I wanted to always remember. His cock in my ass, his hands on my breasts as I touched my clit, his voice singing to me bits of song, his dedication . . . I cherished all of it, from rubbing his body with lavender, goat-milk skin cream to feeling my love for him in contrast to how I felt about the other dancers in the room.
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I have two husbands now, I thought.
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Sunday, October 4th 2015
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I woke beside Hibiscus. I could have asked him to leave my bedroom and let me sleep alone, but instead I'd asked him to stay. I felt a needy, obsessive attachment to him that felt like a slice of heaven. Even with sunlight pouring in through the windows, I still saw the angles of his face as beautiful. I hadn't reverted back in the night.
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Perhaps I wasn't pleased by the skin that hung over his muscles, but it no longer frightened me. Perhaps I would have trouble worshiping his body with full vigor, but his face . . . Looking at the angles of his face, Good morning handsome, was my first thought. I didn't speak it, afraid of being a hypocrite for all I'd said before. I felt ashamed for how I'd made him feel like he could never be attractive in my eyes.
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And yet, if he hadn't been able to accept that, then my mind may have never re-wired itself to find him so perfect. He told me of his dream and I listened sleepily. I fetched a multi-green kombucha, played music for him, talked with him, played and explored with him.
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Reluctantly, I let him go to work on the Silverstag Eco Hamlet's water system. As much as I didn't want him to go, I found myself still complete in his absence.