I am here, just as you are there, at the bottom of the list.

I will remind myself when I wake in the morning that you exist. You exist! Each day that sheds light brings me closer to you and the end of both our lists.

I have been yearning and felt the pull grow over time. It sits at the base of my soul and stirs upward, arousing my body. A warmth expands and transforms into goose bumps. Electricity crackles around me, yet calms me, as though Divinity itself has touched my core and reminded me not to worry. All is well. Divine timing is at work.

There are days that I would like to run away from my work and drive through the mountain passes just to be closer to where you are, where you must be, because you are not here.

I have floated, naked, in the Caribbean for countless full moons dreaming of what it will be like once we are united. The emptiness of the night disappears. I desire the warm touch of your skin against me, a simple knowledge that you are here in my life. Forever.

I don’t care if you or your dog snores. No noise can shake me from that kind of peace. Sleepless nights of longing will no longer claw at an emptiness I cannot explain.

We will meet, perhaps by happy accident. Maybe it will be charming. Or it could be awkward. But I know that it will be memorable. Your eyes will hold my soul and I will not look away. It will not make you uncomfortable.

We will date. Or get coffee. Or talk on a park bench. Anything will do. Something unspeakable will blossom and captivate us as our time together unfolds. You won’t mind that I was raised in a traditional Midwestern family and stumbled onto all of that “alternative stuff” in college and beyond.

I won’t be overwhelmed by the enormity of your being, or the soulful melancholy that threads itself into your work, echoing my own longing. I am tired of this journey, yet independent, steadfast and strong. What will matter most is that you see my heart: earnest, honest, and pure.

“She didn’t belong anywhere and she never really belonged to anyone. And everyone else belonged somewhere and to someone. People thought she was too wonderful. But she only wanted to belong to someone. People always thought she was too wonderful to belong to them or that something too wonderful would hurt too much to lose. And that’s why she liked him, because he just thought she was crazy.”

~ C. JoyBell C.

You will understand why I cast away another life, unfulfilling and crushing, to wander as I do now. In time, you will tell me that it is over now, it is a thing of the past. It is time to stop wandering. I am home with you.

You will let me touch you, in all manner of ways, but first with my hands. You will welcome the connection, and find a depth of peace and healing in that still yet engaged space.

I pray you aren’t too ticklish.

If I am lucky, you will join me in the bath, or we will create a place where we can soak together. After we have dried each other off, I will let you pick which oils you’d like to smell on me as you fall asleep.

You will hold me and I will breathe in warmth like I have never known. You will smell like a magnificent combination of shampoo and soap and oil, but most importantly, yourself. There is no other name for your scent except You.

I will know it and crave it and bury my head in you while you hold me, just so I may breathe all of you in. When we are apart, I will sleep soundly by clutching or wearing one of your soft tees. You will instinctively hand it over to me, as though we’ve done this all before.

I will tell you the story of the bell I once hung in a temple in Thailand. It rang prayers up to heaven for you, my beloved, even though we were not yet together. Someday I would like for us to take a song tao up the mountain and climb the stairs to the temple, so I can show you where it hangs.

You will understand the joyful tears that fell from my eyes, and see the bright illumination of the sun upon the golden chedi. We will walk to the Bodhi tree, breathe it in, and take a fallen leaf with us to commemorate the day.

We will talk. It will not all be flirtatious, but it will be clever. It will be grounded but emotional, intense as well as fun. We will hold each other with a great and tender respect, honoring the similarity and disparity of our beliefs and experiences. Just as the yin honors the yang and the sun gives light so that the moon may shine, we will be the best of friends and dance easily as lovers.

“She is so naked and singular.

She is the sum of yourself and your dream.

Climb her like a monument, step after step.

She is solid.”

~ Anne Sexton

We will write. Maybe together or in separate rooms. You will poke fun at the way I write and how I must stop everything when the creative urge takes over. I may turn off the stove to write something inspiring on a napkin or notepad. You will see my journals and notepads with their messy brilliance, and understand my need for good smooth pens. My need for the physical satisfaction of writing on paper, since so much of my life centers around and flows through my hands.

You will laugh with understanding when you see the childhood family portrait; the wide grin on my face, the clarity of my eyes.  My wild hands with fingers splayed outward, feeling constricted by the formal white gloves, willing them to fly off my hands so that I may feel the world through my palms once again.

You will tell me to stop tearing up and burning my works, to be nicer to myself and my creations. I will make a foolish claim that I’m practicing the art of letting go and embracing impermanence. You will invariably raise an eyebrow at me and I will laugh, then kiss you.

I will write you love letters. In pen. Via email and text. On dirty cars with my finger. But mostly with indelible ink, on your heart.

I would like to tell you this, you will know me, and I will know you. There will be no doubt. The suffering created from traversing our lists will cease. Not because either of us is dependent upon the other. We are both heartily self-sufficient in our own rights.

No, my love, the suffering will end because we are at last together, our souls fulfilling an age-old contract that will propel us forward further than if we continued on alone. We will commingle with ease, and exist in a complimentary state that flows instead of limits.

You will know intuitively which days I want coffee instead of matcha, and I will know that some mornings you like to rise alone and watch the dawn chase away the dark of another night. I will be steady in the knowledge that our dog will always be your dog, and that his love for me is really more akin to tolerable acceptance out of devotion to you. But he will love our children in a way neither of us have seen before. It will mirror how we will feel about those sparks of life, enamoring us and gracing our lives until our passing day.

I will weep tears of joy for the sweet and sensual miracle that is our love, and you will recognize the echo of pain that resides deep within, for we cannot know light without having wandered in the dark. You will understand that I am not fixating on the past, but forming a silent prayer of gratitude. We navigated the blind bends of yearning and solitude to find grace and fulfillment.

We will teach our children great things, all of which will stem from the heart. I will be enchanted in watching you be their father, and will hold my breath in wonder at the things you will teach them. I will pass from this world in peace, knowing that we showed them what it means to love and be loved in the fullest sense.

“Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”
~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Long before we birth our children, our friends and family will watch us with reserved delight, and then whisper to each other that we must finally be ready to settle down. I will make a confession to you one night after we have made love, long before we have verbalized our final commitment, yet knowing we have already internalized it. I don’t understand what it means to be ready to “settle down”.

I will explain that while I understand the intent of the expression as one of nesting or rooting, there is an undertone of excessive compromise and losing one’s self in this business of “settling.” I will be scared to tell you that I don’t want to settle with you. Because there is nothing about being with you that could possibly make me think that I had settled. I will tell you, as I throw my arms open wide in our moonlit bedroom, that I want to expand up and out, to be continuously challenged to grow and fly and soar, knowing that there is freedom to expand in our togetherness.

And then I will see the look in your eyes. We will not need to say anything more.

I am here, love.

I have come to the end.

Are you ready?

“Understand, I’ll slip quietly

away from the noisy crowd

when I see the pale

stars rising, blooming over the oaks.

I’ll pursue solitary pathways

through the pale twilit meadows,

with only this one dream:

You come too.”

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

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Editorial Assistant: Chrissy Tustison/Editor: Travis May

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