We are slaves to attraction. These bonds keep the atoms that make up our corporeal bodies from disintegrating. It keeps us tethered to the earth, and it is what draws us to each other. I believe who you find attractive isn't fixed, but I don't think you have any semblance of control over it. Everyone has a picture of their ideal partner in their heads, a composite of features that when realised is the manifestation of one's desires.
I've known that I'm gay for a long time, and I've had my fair share of guys to whom I found myself attracted. They were different guys of different backgrounds and ages, but in each case, attraction was instant, inevitable and undeniable.
As it is, attraction often leads to a violent, destructive event. Two bodies meet, one exerts a greater force of attraction than the other, they collide, resulting in the smaller, more fragile one being annihilated.
In the aftermath, you feel broken and the core of who you are has been fractured and ejected back into the atmosphere. You linger, vestiges of that same cataclysmic attraction still keeping you near, but at arms length from your destroyer. You exist but only as fragments, clouds of dust and sharp, jagged shards caught in his orbit.
Coalescence
It will seem like eternity. Your shapeless form will seem like it's the only one you've ever known. But eventually, attraction will grow feeble either through the passage of time or perhaps through the awakening of other forces of attraction. You will drift away and escape. You may forget, or you may not, after all, you still bear the scars of that encounter.
Slowly, you begin to collect knowledge as you move through space and time. Your body will change, your mind will be an accretion of memory and experience, and you will grow. Soon, you will no longer feel disembodied. You will feel your bones within you, you will feel your breath return to your lungs.You will feel alive again.
And when you are ready, and only when you are ready, will you know attraction once again. You will feel its familiar pull towards a brightness whose countenance might stir fear in you. The fear of once again being broken and hollow. The fear of falling.
But even as you draw ever closer, feel that rush of air beneath you, your heart beating in your throat, a thought is kindled in your mind: this is what we do. We fall. We pick ourselves up again. And we learn.
This is Day 5.
(Hey, future husband. If you're reading this, this is where your head should be resting: beside mine.)
In the aftermath, you feel broken and the core of who you are has been fractured and ejected back into the atmosphere. You linger, vestiges of that same cataclysmic attraction still keeping you near, but at arms length from your destroyer. You exist but only as fragments, clouds of dust and sharp, jagged shards caught in his orbit.
All those years I've spent alone
building a tinder-dry
fortress of wood and twine
All it takes
Is one spark
From your fevered lips
To set me alight
And reduce me to ashes.
Coalescence It will seem like eternity. Your shapeless form will seem like it's the only one you've ever known. But eventually, attraction will grow feeble either through the passage of time or perhaps through the awakening of other forces of attraction. You will drift away and escape. You may forget, or you may not, after all, you still bear the scars of that encounter.
Slowly, you begin to collect knowledge as you move through space and time. Your body will change, your mind will be an accretion of memory and experience, and you will grow. Soon, you will no longer feel disembodied. You will feel your bones within you, you will feel your breath return to your lungs.You will feel alive again.
And when you are ready, and only when you are ready, will you know attraction once again. You will feel its familiar pull towards a brightness whose countenance might stir fear in you. The fear of once again being broken and hollow. The fear of falling.But even as you draw ever closer, feel that rush of air beneath you, your heart beating in your throat, a thought is kindled in your mind: this is what we do. We fall. We pick ourselves up again. And we learn.
This is Day 5.
(Hey, future husband. If you're reading this, this is where your head should be resting: beside mine.)
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