I like it when you look at me like that
What if we’re connected to learn?
I wave at the dormant coffee spoon,
disturbing its rest
as it lays unused against the side of my cup.
The cup is empty.
The dry remnants mark the sides,
letting me know
it’s been empty for a while.
But I need something.
And there’s no fridge to open out here.
As I rattle the spoon against the coffee-charred walls,
I hope the dregs of foam I find are enough to satiate me.
There is nothing.
I’ve been here before.
I look across the table.
My mind replays
the soft, coy laugh she made
when I first met her.
Maybe things were easier then.
Everything is at the start.
My heart tickles,
and my eyes well.
I hope this isn’t the moment
someone comes to refill my cup.
I know I’ll want one again,
but right now
I don’t know if I can handle it.
Better empty,
until I know what I want.
Fear has the better of me.
What if I drink too much
and make myself ill.
Again.
I’ve spoken to friends.
The ones who have the same order every day
are hard to talk to.
They get smugger by the day.
They’re probably right,
but I haven’t figured out my order yet.
I liked what I had
for a while,
but something about it didn’t agree with me.
My issue, and it’s always my issue,
is when I like something,
I have more than is good for me.
It’s always the same order,
but when I enjoy it,
I find it hard to stop.
It becomes an obsession.
It’s selfish.
I’ve learned that.
I love the way it makes me feel.
And when I like a feeling,
it’s all I want to feel.
Wrap me in it.
Fill me up.
I want nothing else.
Until I realise…
I’ve had too much.
Why do we connect?
I wish I was chasing different feelings,
different sensations,
different objectives,
but it’s the same thing.
I just want to know more about myself.
And as I learn who I am,
I begin to fall in love with that new version.
And as I learn more about who that is,
I begin to realise
I’m not who I thought I was.
Rarely am I who I thought I was.
The mirage of feelings I once felt
evaporates in the stale air of routine.
The sparks and promise are replaced by the work.
And what had once asked for so little
and given so much
becomes a chore.
Was it a lie?
No.
But something wasn’t real.
And maybe that’s me.
I’m what’s wrong.
So the chasm opens,
and it asks the same question:
build the bridge
or choose the void.
I always want the bridge.
I used to think I wanted it
to maintain the traffic.
The exchange and trade of energy
between two sentient lumps of meat
trying to stay warm
in a world so cold.
But here,
now,
as I look across the table
where I am sat
and she is not…
I realise
I didn’t build the bridge for this.
I just wanted to walk halfway
and see how deep the hole is.
Building Bridges in the Sky
We are islands.
We are connected by bridges.
We have to build the bridges.
We send things along the bridges.
The bridges need maintenance.
There is always a chasm.
It begins with space.
It is solved with light
and time.
We are apart,
until a small beam of light
travels 150 million kilometres through space
to bounce off your skin
at just the right angle
to reach my eye
and tell my mind:
go look closer.
But as the continents shift,
and we become closer,
we begin to learn
what it is we have to do
to bridge the gap.
I hear the dialogue:
how do I do it?
how do I close the gap to them?
Some idea of a partner,
imagined characteristic,
materially driven,
or at best,
some hypothesised personality
that I want to be around.
But in reality,
it’s an empty pursuit.
Because the only journey
is internal.
When I close this chasm
and begin to build this bridge,
do I like what I am becoming?
Because the only thing that can stop us
is ourselves.
Yes.
We must learn to build the bridges.
One must be able to build,
else there is only chasms.
And “no man is an island.”
The shape of the bridge defines what can travel along it.
If I want a certain type of traffic,
I build a certain type of bridge.
But eventually, I become the builder.
I become the tool that I use to connect.
If I want to see physical beauty,
I manage it.
I curate it.
I tend less to my deep roots
instead focusing on the surface,
on what can be seen easily,
on what can be swiped and shared.
If I want depth,
I eschew the surface,
criticising material pleasures
in favour of a well-tended root structure
blind to the beauty of light,
seeking depth in a world
that doesn’t want to dig.
Everything Is a Mirror
It may appear conceited thus far
delusionally romantic (or the opposite),
inconsistent with objective reality.
Connection without commitment,
disguised as exploration.
Especially when
the costs on either side
of our gender wall
can be
so vastly different.
We have different perceptions of connection.
Different costs to our time.
A physical boundary
That changes the power balance
that, once crossed,
presents a complex neurological pattern.
Energies shift.
Often, more losses than gains.
Romance and affection present the same problem.
Once mixed with the modern poisons:
coffee breaks,
work drinks,
late-night movies,
road trips
It’s a time bomb.
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But we’re all looking for the same thing.
Being seen.
As I look further into the world,
I begin to see.
That all I’ve been looking at
is myself.
When I find connection,
yes,
it is facilitated by another
a grammatically different
block of consciousness.
But
the side I see,
the side I begin to love,
is nothing more than a reflection
of who I want to be.
It’s Not So Simple
It can be easy to make sweeping statements.
Men chase youth
in the hope they stay free.
Women chase status
in the hope they stay safe.
There’s some truth in it
but
it’s less transactional.
It’s about sharing,
about the tendency to find a middle ground,
about the exchange of value,
about finding ways to keep one another
Sidenote: Despite the pleas
for a gender war
We’ve worked well together
since we first met
perpetually alive,
increasingly healthy,
often safe,
sometimes even happy.
And the difficulties we take on in this pursuit,
they show us
how far we’ll go,
and what we’ll become,
to be closer to something
that we can never become.
So What Then of the Muse
The artist is concerned
in general,
with very little.
Across disciplines,
there seem to be
a few consistent threads:
an interesting perspective (notably, a place to stand),
a way to communicate,
an audience to communicate with.
Thus,
exploring the reality of what we are,
from novel perspectives,
and finding ways
to make that perspective
habitable,
seems a valid route to growth.
Muses
Although commonly human,
they appear in many forms.
Some material,
some abstract,
all offering a novel perspective.
But the connection,
the love,
the wild sacrifices
made in the name of obsession,
these are constant.
Because this is where we lose ourselves:
for an idea,
for a feeling,
for something we’ve made up in our head.
What we see in our inspiration,
whatever its form,
whatever its shape,
is ourselves.
Our aspiration.
The beauty in it
is in the work.
What we’ll build to get closer.
What we’ll learn in the process.
Idolisation,
pedestals,
a minor aspect of the relationship.
Adoration comes cheap.
The sparks at the start,
the aesthetics of variation,
they trivialise the relationship.
But.
to sacrifice,
to suffer,
to really understand
what the chasm between you looks like,
then there is growth.
There,
and only there,
do we find growth.
When the work begins,
we are removed of our illusions.
What we desire doesn’t meet us halfway.
It stands on the far edge
and watches us become
as we build, and reach, and grow.
And once the bridge is built,
it will ask for more.
And what we once desired so much will be there.
And once we grasp it,
stuffed full of whatever aspect of ourselves
we were depleted of,
starved of,
and now have in excess,
we begin
to actually understand
if we’ve built a bridge
that can last forever,
or
just
lets us walk halfway
to see the view.
Next week, we start our new block of research
The last one got a little heavy
For the next 12 weeks, we’re going to be talking about Muses
Hope you enjoy the ride
Love you loads
- R x