desire

...inspired by this post....

Desire is the singer/songwriter on stage. The words and music emanating from her, the soul that shines through her music. Her presence and influence in my life. The friendship and closeness that I imagine, and sometimes achieve. A knowing glance, a shared understanding. Perhaps a shared stage - if I desire it.

Desire is my girlfriend. Her hands on my body. My fingers running through her hair. Watching her transform with a smile. Laughter welling up in almost every moment. Waking up beside her. Knowing.

Desire is the stranger with the firm body, slim-hipped and small-breasted. Desire sometimes wears a button-down shirt that's slightly open at the collar, and catches my breath as she moves cat-like and graceful past my table. Short hair, long slender fingers. I no longer need to imagine what she might do with them.

Desire is the pull of music in my life. It is my instrument alive beneath my fingers, the chording, learning and relearning fingerstyle. It is my voice, somewhat raspy from my recent cold, yet still able to project across a room. Desire is pitch and rhythm, knowing the nuances of song and singer, being music, becoming the performance.

Desire is a tiny little house made out of a cardboard box that sits on a child's dresser. There is a note inviting the fairies to come and live there, and various food offerings left hopefully by the thumb-sized open door.

Desire is seven years old and sleeping peacefully beside me, tucking her feet carefully beneath me, inching closer and closer as the night passes, face flushed rosy, and blonde hair spread across her pillow.

Desire is more than words on a page. Desire is the ache to form letters one after another, the pull of words upon words in an act of shattering creation. Desire leads me from darkness to light. Desire forms my intentions, gets me up in the morning: ready, anxious, compelled to create. Words, more words, music and more music. The desire to create, to make each day new is my longing. Live this life this moment in fullness, rather than the next one. Make it whole and use every part of it - body open, aware, sensual, mind engaged, fingers in tactile pursuit of just the right word to end the final sentence.

Desire is not the absence of fear. Desire is the call to action in spite of fear. Desire puts fear into perspective. Fear is the ego voice, making me smaller, less significant, the shadow self who roamed formless for far too long, until she began to shape herself. I will experience fear, and I will allow desire to draw me deeper into myself, the world around me, and my creations.

I can reach. I will grasp. I will succeed and I will not fear the achievement. Desire. Not the end result, but the ache that propels me forward, the momentum towards an experience greater than myself.

Desire is a child with red ribbons on a crowded subway.
Desire is ink-stained fingers and a fresh page.
Desire is a wisp of smoke above a snow-covered meadow.



And you who seek to know Me, know that the seeking and yearning will avail you not, unless you know the Mystery: for if that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you will never find it without.
For behold, I have been with you from the beginning, and I am That which is attained at the end of desire.  (Doreen Valiente as adapted by Starhawk)