Promiscuous Reflections: Rather Be A Tease
He thinks he ‘deserves’ my commitment, my surrender in a dance of hedonistic consumption. I do not yet have access to my iron spine and the wings concealed, tucked too tight to unfurl. I feel flightless and airless, my lungs screaming and begging for fresh air to combat the dense smog of lust. They’re just a few words, and not having said them seems to accelerate me beyond the prelude of chaos, straight into the thick of my unplumbed darkness. All of the boundaries I never set come crashing down around me, all of the worth I never unveiled, bound and scattered across an unforgiving and seemingly foreign and hostile land. I draw fracturing breathes, my ribs aching in response as I struggle within, becoming crystallized in self-abandonment and lethal self- criticism. He doesn’t perceive the crises his proximity exacerbates, and he doesn’t have the capacity to care about the direction of my spiral, the ways I betray. I don’t even recognize the meltdown that has its hold on my being as I descend. And in that forsaken moment, nor do I recognize the glitched reflection staring at me through a waterfall mirage of tears. As I cry, leaking from within, he prods and pries. The harsh critic within projects that apprehension makes me a tease, and to take off my prissy prude panties. Without the brake fluid and valuable precaution that heightened self-esteem provides, I am swept into motion and into my most volatile motions. Panties discarded on the floor, I ride away until my self-destruction is but a slight vibration amongst a maelstrom of ash, soot, wind and fire. I ride until I’m numb to the destruction above and insistent upon finishing the destruction I’d wrought within. I ride until the path I’m on caves in and the sky and the light stop following me down. I ride until I come to my senses amongst sunless ruin and foreshadows of the grief to greet me after numbness’ departure. I ride until I’m surrounded, bare naked and mocked by remnants of discarded treasures and valuables, and prodded by bones of skeletons I can’t remember stowing so far down. The bass of his voice and a heat I never want to experience again envelop me like barbed wire tape, the vice I crave the most. Crooning to deceptively labeled desires, he takes my values and muddies them further, he tries to direct their path to manifestation with every punishingly deep stroke and growl of abandon. And as he punishes me for rivaling his alleged self-control with the power of my surrender, I blame the surrender that I do not yet understand, I choke on the power that I refuse to claim and utilize as my own. Quiet overwhelm wrapped in coyness and chaos disguised as comfort press against my senses as the war brews inside, a self-contained hell. The only tears I can produce escape down my thighs, and he is eager to spill all, to spoil himself within my divides as he spreads them further. I recognize my soul sacrifices by the absence of permeating warmth as they slip away and leave behind melancholy waves, an oceanic distance between myself and I, a growing chasm between my light and my shadow. The lawlessness encouraged between us draws upon my weakness with every touch, and I reject my strength and my love when I need it the most for someone who wants to use the slickness of my walls to boast. Although I presume to be lost beyond saving as I stumble through this wasteland, I find my inner savior with every sinful experience of unclaimed desire and need. I allow him to think that he has taken me, claimed me as his own, as I am consumed by the darkness within myself. At the end of this destruction, I accept my brittleness as I could not previously, and the rejection of all darkness not of my responsibility begins silently within. I fall and bow to every wound and am filled and fulfilled with grace and humility in return. The harmony preceding my destruction feels familiar, and I accept this as a returning of necessary self. I throw myself against his lingering presence and bear down with all of my anguish, guilt and shame until it is discarded with the blood, toxins and corrupted stardust of my being. I allow the bliss to seek me through the overwhelming darkness and the sutures of my soul take over the healing process so that I can give in to my goodness, reminded. I am for my own consumption, first and foremost, and I remember this fondly as I forsake the broken patterns of relation for the dawn of a better presence. I feel my shadow tentatively reaching out and I pull her close this time, eager to plum through the once rejected essence. She rewards me with antiquities of my being revived by her freedom and wilderness, and I find the grace I need within her provocative laughter and uninhibited tears. As he drifts, pleasured and detached from the realities of my destruction and consequent rebirth, I am relieved and empowered. I feel tranquil as I dance in the hell of my creation, knowing that there is a space above waiting for the version of me that I need, desire, and deserve to embody. The more I allow myself to detach him from my innate passion and the truth that lives within my touch, the more the delicious haze of my eternal light devours my being, spreading from my core and permeating the pain. I trade his touches for my divine caresses, and I trade the misguided tool between his legs for fantasies and sexual discovery safely and beautifully realized. I trade his wasteful consumption for the veneration waiting to be sought within, my essence free to attract circumferentially rewarding intimacy. I trade compliments catered to acts of self-disrespect and unravel naturally within the complements of authentic, deep companionship. Flesh flayed and heart still beating and seeking, I relinquish the parts of me with his name sloppily scrawled across them, refusing the weight they hold as I trudge through the foreign darkness. Stepping stones and staggered cliffs carry my bludgeoned being back up, towards the light, and I pray over my skeletons as I pass so that their bones may aid my recovery. I leave with them my sorrow, and let their whispers and warnings guide me into my tomorrow. As the light seeks me in rays, I cling to new ways and ideals, the ruins within submit their blessings to the cause. Old relics and ancient wisdom crawl with urgency towards the heels of my feet, and I kneel to graciously sweep them into my bosom of being as I climb, and climb. Darkness fades behind me as I drown out the swish and sway of lust untamed, and light punctures the dust and debris, soot and crumbles falling backwards into the abyss. And as I climb out, still wearing debris and shedding betrayal, whispers of despair and the pain I've caused reach towards me to send me back, threatening to root me down and crystallize me once again. Instead of buckling under the despair, I close my eyes and call my sorrow to cleanse my heart, seeking the light forsaken and forgotten long ago. And as I turn around as a familiar quake and rumble begins, expecting to be crushed by the tide rushing in, I find blooms upon blooms rushing to greet me from the abyss, limbs and branches twining towards the skies above, a sweet haze and undoing breeze surrounding my battered form. The bones and ruins whisper that they will always be there, not to ache, but to remind, and I turn away and begin to dance with new lust, new life. And as I gaze into clear and still waters, I surrender anew, falling into my beckoning soul.
