Somewhere beyond logic and reason, beyond emotion, and past caring, resides my want. Driven by an evolutionary impulse I cannot govern. I expect I am not alone in this. Though we are only able to articulate our deepest hunger when we are willing to dive into the vulnerable belly of desire. Hold the intolerable ache of empty arms reaching. Ride the giddy heights of arriving. Thrash our way through the terrifying crush of fear grasping to hang on to that which we have only recently acquired.
When I stand naked before my desire. Let go of all that keeps me locked in flight. I land, finally, in the richness of my own wanting. Allow myself to be pulled to the edge of some steep inner cliff. Where I hover and hang. Debating what will be. Until I can no longer stand it. So off, I jump. And in the fall, I learn:
I want to run away. Dig myself into the back of a vast cave. Park my body there in the dark. Alone. Silent. Simple. Until I get what I need.
And then, I want to fly. Straight into the arms of my beloveds. Warm-hearted and holy. Hugging with every ounce of love I can push through my heart, down my arms, and into my embrace of them. And when I am overwhelmed by life, again. When the body is drooping and pulling me through the days, I want to remove myself to a high mountaintop. Shack up in a cabin. Alone. With the words. And paper. And nothing else. Free from the influence of cell phones and computers and the internet. Drop deep into the well of myself. Pull up buckets full of truth. Spit them out onto the page. Until I am bone dry.
I want to carve a place in this world. That is mine. Legacy. What is left behind when this sack of skin and bones and blood breathes its last.
To have left some indelible thing hanging in the gap. Marker of a fleeting presence. Remembrance to those who knew and loved me. Gift, as much as I have to give, to life. It feels imperative. At times impossible. And yet, it sloughs away at the layers of me. Demanding. Relentless longing. To matter. To make a difference. To someone.
I thirst for knowledge. An unquenchable craving. Addictive as any drug. Stay up late into the night. Until my eyes are bleary and stinging. Just to read one more line. Digest an extra bit of information. Synthesize. Collate. Perform alchemical calculations. Turning each thing. This way and that. To see all the angles I can perceive. Show it to another, to capture the ones I cannot. My need to discover is insatiable. And selective. I yearn for what reveals mystery. Unveils the impulses of humanity. Forever and always attempting to grok why we do what we do. And how we change. And what keeps us going when confronted with the impossible. I devour stories. Well-told stories. Human connections. Mirror neurons firing. Linking and unlinking vast chains of data across the history of my limited understanding. I want, always, to drink in more.
I long to get lost. In another place. Time. Culture. Drop myself off in the middle of somewhere. And disappear into the sights, sounds, colors, and feel of newness.
Wander into a Holi festival and be pelted with powered shades of rich, vibrant celebration. Pitch myself in front of pyramids. Gigantic, miraculous markers of civilizations past. Stand again inside the great cathedrals of Europe. Awestruck by patterns of light on stone. Praying to the spirits who still crowd the space with their presence. Even after all this time. See the masterworks of painters. The ones coded with so much information that to perch before them is to be transported. Out of place and time. Only to find myself, much later, still standing there with tears streaming down my cheeks. Because I feel more than my eyes can ever see. And I would feel it all.
I want to hold all of the things and none of them at all. To inhabit every inch of my skin and this life. And also to be free. To let go of all notions of self until I am nothingness and everything at once.
I long for the impossible. Improbable. Holy. Heights. And am willing to surf every God Damn low there is to play out this journey. I want to circle and collide. Exploding onto my Self like a dying star. Until a new thing is born. Because we are always, always birthing new things. I crave full-tilt living. Testing the widest spectrum of my humanity. Burning all the rules. Writing new ones. Drowning those later. Moving on. Even when it hurts. Even when it makes me seem like a shitty, horrible person. I long, most of all, to be true to this sacred Self I cart around inside this vehicle called body.
I wonder, dear reader: When you succumb to that which you most desire, what crawls up from the depths of your belly and dares to cross the threshold of your lips?
previously published on The Urban Howl, March 2017