untitled (on wanting)

lately, my thoughts have been consumed by wanting.

there are plenty of things i want. flour on the countertop, dough coming together in my hands. flowers on the table, in the garden, drying in bunches on the walls. all good things take work. i’ve been burning a prayer candle lately, inch by inch, and i think i finally understand. it’s about the quiet comfort, the way the light flickers on the wall and the way the glass is warm to the touch. it’s less lonely, somehow.

desire strikes cold in my heart and i think for a time about how this place would feel much better with a fireplace, windows that didn’t creak in the wind. i’m six years old and pressing my ear to a glass on the wall. this conversation isn’t for me, but i want it to be. i want there to be something just for me, but when you come too close i am the stray cat in the parking lot we’ve been feeding who won’t let us touch her quite yet. you want to scratch me between the ears and i want you to prove to me you want it. where do i separate my desire from my deep-seated need to be desired? there is no line, no pretty seam to pull apart. my mother picks stitches apart with her teeth and i hold the pins for her, handing them over one by one. we don’t speak, at least not out loud. i want you to tell me you want me but i wouldn’t believe you even if you did.

i've been spending time carving a place inside myself for desire, right in the center of my chest where it is dark and warm. i want to hold it there like a baby bird, careful and close until it's ready to spread its wings and fly up my throat into the harsh shock of daylight. it's a curious thing, to want. i've shuttered my windows against this storm for so long that i didn't realize the river had overflowed until i found it lapping at my doorstep, just waiting to rush in over the welcome mat.

i used to tell myself: don't look too long in the mirror. hold your breath driving past graveyards, or the ghosts might grab your ankles and not let go. take this ache inside you and bury it in the woods. it's not beautiful when a person like you wants things in all the wrong ways. i am small and scared and don't know what to do with all these feelings that don't quite fit inside me yet.

there will come a day when the willow-bark skin i've been wearing will slough off in strips and i will find that when i flay myself to the bone there is nothing left but the hot pulse of wanting. it's an inescapable truth, then. i think that the state of human existence must be desire, and if not that, then love.

published october 12, 2021

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