The Muse and Me

I spoke: “I will scribe a million pages, every word a testimony to your beauty: an endless story. Beguiled and enchanted, my fingers will embrace the keys, and paint the all-encompassing passion that stirs my soul. Recklessly, I will hold your hands strong, hear your voice deep, and in pages’ dreams you shall live.”

He spoke: “I am not this flesh, nor these eyes. My beauty cannot be quantified or qualified or held in possession or estimation. Do not weigh, judge or evaluate. I have already been made prisoner of selfish eyes. Do not watch me as the others. Know beauty is immeasurable and does not rot with this flesh and break with this bone. Appearance will fade. Let loose this withering illusion you grasp. See where beauty truly rests. Behind the gaze. Come hither, come follow the depths of me. I shall take you through the corridors of my secrets, my dreams, my fantasy. Here I stand naked, exposed, and vulnerable. Here is risk. Here is truth. And fear unveiled. Here is beauty.”

I spoke: “To the depth of me your eyes speak. You are beauty from my dreams, every facet, every groove a memory, a recollection that inspires and pulls me through. You brighten me. You lighten me. You fill me with a glow I’ve never known. Every part, every line I have traced before. And yet, I am made not to touch, not to reach, not to know. How my heart aches. How my every day is filled with misery and dismay. Though I walk enlightened and free, with new hope and dreams, I am ever brought back to the pool of cool springs, the freezing knowing that you are not mine to have.”

He spoke: “Choose what bathes you. What bathes your spirit, a gentle charm, almost silent, almost invisible. You are inherently lovely. You calm me. You complete me with your kindness. A mirror to me, your logic is sliced through with innocence and curiosity. Justice is carried where you step. Secrets upheld. Your sweetness equal to your sincerity; both leave me thirsting for more brightness. You are my humble adobe, and my spirit rests in you. Your abiding grace coupled with loyalty, I cherish, moment by moment. I await you, as one awaits the sunrise. Can you not see that you are the sun to me, the one that feeds my very vine. How wonderful that I hold your inherent goodness, and not a shadow existence, a hope, a distraction. I hold on to truth, while you hold on to fantasy. Can you not see my love is pure, while you are still child sitting under tall tree, waiting for the shade to part, and love to find you, when you are already found? You stand filled, but yet you weep for this illusion of emptiness.”

I spoke: “But what of my story, my every wish around you, my waiting, my yearning, my constant wanting. Are you not what I need? Desire? Crave? My thankfulness inside your silhouette. I stand here, at center purged of games, intention, and manipulation. I stand naked, as you proposed. I am vulnerable to the core. I am all I can be. And yet you reject.”

He spoke (with laughter): “Precious one. I don’t know who taught you of love. Who taught you of heart. But what you wait for, what you crave, what you long for intensely with every bit of you, I cannot provide. That is your journey to walk. Your journey to lead. Remember I am this flesh still. Always this blood that runs out in time. The heart that tires. The brain that dissipates. Hold onto what is me alone, and you will wither. See that beyond the dream is the reality of spirit, this wanting man, who longs to be seen from the inside, where the light abides. Embrace the inner me, and in turn you embrace yourself. I am but a mirror, and shall always be my friend, a mirror of where you stand. What you make of me, you make into yourself. What you think you lack, you make me lack. What you think I am, you become. Build me up from the foundation, from the soul-level; so that when all about I fall apart, what remains is strength in character and spirit. Love me there. Love me at the center. Please. Please love me there.”

I spoke: “I love you there. I do. I love you there, and will love you there entirely, if that is what you wish. But how does one un-paint the pages I already scribed…how do I bleed this pain out of me. How does the yearning cease, the thoughts stop?”

He spoke: “You just decide. That is all. You just decide. Decide that you are in completion, that I am in completion, and any thought of a human fixing or repairing you is false. I can be with you, but cannot be you. I can be with you, but cannot be your all. I am not your answer, nor your question. I am a man. I am all that man is. And you are all that woman is. And together we are no more complete than apart. This is a game you play in your mind. A mystery that has no solution. So release. Decide and release. And turn your focus and energy to the core of you. Here is where the love is. Not outside.”

I spoke: “Then I decide. I decide. I am enough. You are enough. We are already complete. And I release you, lovely bird from your cage. I release you without expectation, dream, or intention. I release what I have made you into. I release the power I have granted you. I release everything, and in doing so, without this attachment, I will love you fully, for no other purpose but for your essence.”