“Find a guy who calls you beautiful instead of hot, who will lie under the stars and listen to your
heartbeat... wait for the boy who wants to show you off to the world when you are in sweats, who holds your hand in front of his friends, who thinks you're just as pretty without makeup on. One who is knows he's lucky his is to have you.... The one who turns to his friends and says, 'that's her.'” 
- anonymous

never just sex…

never the erotic and sensual  for its own sake—exploration with the act, or journey of the senses as the “climax” of the “climax” …but now?  When did my current paradox first take shape? Post-Raj? The latest model was supposed to be the “one,” and after months of luxuriant, intoxicating fantasies of happily-ever-after, he faded out  in the “morning-after” greys—hardly even ordinary for all of his conjuring and dime-store magic…and I think that even though my heart was broken in the after-math,

I emerged stronger, my feathers bright,

 and wings orange in flight;

more full from their baptism of ashes.

 I changed in that re-birth because a little corner of my heart; perhaps even a deeply rooted weed in the bedded earth of my soul—perished.

 It died to the desperation of loneliness;

 it died to the paralyzing fear that true love would never find me;

died to the coldness and strange gloom that my dreams would float as still lifes,

stagnant in colour—stillbirths barren in hopes of fulfillment

 in vacant space around me. 

These debilitating, exhausting, perpetual, crazy-making fears DIED.  And my heart rose up out of those ashes-truly free-buoyant in the joyous tremble of each moment I am alive—

Unfettered in love, laughter, ambition, dream, adventure, sensuality, and journeys alight—AT LAST…

and so I have been awake in my moments –aware, present, and full in my experiencing of them…

more alive in my body, and attuned to its movements—its hungers, cravings and desires;

more present to its rhythms; more sentient in each footstep I take,

 each kiss as it falls and plays upon my lips,

 each touch-electric-

and each syllable roundly uttered by my mouth…

more nourished by the foods I eat,

 their spices and textures as worlds of delight to my body…

and sex? …

There are many easy words; ready judgments, that I could drape around my neck—contorting my soul to fit into the hands of her critic…container or casket? Just or cruel?  I have come to this…

I have wanted the men who have wanted me.

 I have lusted and desired and kissed and kissed back; I have touched and held their bodies close to mine; I have whispered and gazed and laughed and

cried out in delight;

I have caressed and beheld these hearts and spirits and in those moments of night greeting day; dark meeting light, loved them in my own way…

I have wanted and desired and richly received…for me. 

Yes, they watched me, charmed me, chased me, caught me, and made love to me—

but I let them—

and more than this,

I wanted them to.

And yes, it was love to me because

I was full and present in those moments and because

 love is what I am and what I offer. 

And I elicited it in kind from these men—in their languages, of their description…Marry me, You are perfect, You are a wonderful and special woman, You are paradise, I love You, …

and so many more “I love yous” in touches, embraces, and kisses –all of these moments, from wherever they began their journeys-bars or banquets---all of them---have brought  tenderness,  love, passion, playfulness, adventure, and soul to me…

I have said “I do” many times (not yet while walking down an aisle towards my life partner) but rather

 I have learned to say “yes, I do” to myself, and stay committed to THAT truest of soulmates …

so does this make me a “feminist” or a “tramp”? A “cougar” or an “old maid”?...

The weight of such titles are emblazoned across my forehead in scarlet, but lately I guess I’ve been wondering: by whose hand?

Somewhere beneath veils of judgment and insecurity, when the door closes and there’s only me, is there some island that I occupy in the country of between that speaks to a bit of yin and yang around these issues?

 I want to say that how I’ve been living has been an outward expression of acceptance and integration of the incredible freedom and death to fear I spoke of before, but the cultural critic and more conservative Indian woman in me (parental??) worries that I have become quite reckless…

I struggle in corners of my heart to keep shame and judgment at bay, trying to love and embrace myself entirely as I am…taking it all in for just what it is….and just what IS it?

I still strive for those easy answers—those “right” answers that will please, that will make it all okay or acceptable or enlightened in the grand, cosmic scheme of life and spirit…

So, are these cigars just cigars, or echoes of the One hand clapping in the wind? Perhaps for now—in this moment—the tension that I hold in the liminal spaces of between make them both true…

and maybe right now that’s

okay.  




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