Meditations on Desire

Desire peers through a crack in the door. It heaves itself out, lands heavily, and shatters. Loosed fantasies scurry across the floor, filling the room with tiny film clips. Some sweet, some lascivious, some bold enough to blush.

My desire has outed me. 

I need someone.

I want someone. 

It is the gaping vulnerability in my fortress walls. 

Desire for touch, for experience, to be seen deeply in this deep tenderness. 

With the jerk of a knee I jump in front of it and try to block it, push it down. It is terrifying, almost painful in its softness. Pain where pain could come before pain has arrived. Pain at the possibility of pain. Prefelt and thus conjured, a dark fantasy. 

My desire blows in like a storm, hops lie a tornado, a wind turbine swept away and running end to end. It’s own voracious beast, hungry for dopamine, desire sweeps everything else off the table. 

Encompassing all, wanting all, desire consumes more than its fill and is still hungry. Desire isn’t trustworthy nor safe. It has led the charge of all my life's goose chases. Desire is an endless void of churning energy, a black hole ready to suck my attention, my systems, my good sense into another dimension. It has no destination, its path loops endlessly as it tries to close its mouth around itself.

When desire enters, I lose my station. I’m unseated from the wheel. Gleefully, desire seizes control and makes a hard right. From the backseat, with wrists bound and through slated eyes I judge its softness, how it follows the gravitational pull to what feels good. How dare you? 

We are strong. 

We make good choices, hard choices. 

We do the right thing. 

We aren’t sucked in by what feels good. 

I’m exasperated and it’s useless. 

There is no talking sense to desire. 

I clipped it’s wings and caged it, but the color and joy drained out of the righteous life I created. Desire had led me astray. It couldn’t be trusted. It deserved to be punished, banished. On desire I took out my anger, my grief. I said no to desire, no to the pain I felt it'd caused.

And here comes desire bounding out of the woods, as earnest as ever, gleefully undeterred by the past gone wrong. I want the needs of my body sated. To be held, cooked for, gazed upon, teased, to be expertly played like a perfectly tuned instrument. 

I desire to please, to adore, to care for, to put on a show, to be memorable, unforgettable. I want to channel the energy of the universe and focus it on you, to obliterate you, an ant under the magnifying glass of divine love. I want you to feel cherished, lavished upon, exultant. I want you to make sounds you’ve never made before. 

The ego has found a foothold to assert itself. This need to stand out. Can I be bad, even just normal? The pressure I put on myself to be memorable keeps me out of the game. There is an impossible bar that is always out of reach. If I can’t win I don’t want to play. 

What would it be like to be normal, one of many? To be deemed mediocre? Found forgettable in my most vulnerable, my purest form? Something fighting for it’s life in me says no. I’d rather just not engage. Does everyone feel this way? Do we all want to be seen and deemed as precious? Do others just trust they will be or not mind when they aren’t?

Suddenly I am a zookeeper, taking notes on the behavior of my desire. It stalks the fence line, pacing, hungry, wild, untamable. I watch in awe, fascinated, afraid. Desire is ugly and uncomfortable. It’s a wrecking ball, now in motion, swinging into every domain. Desire knows no limits, it wants what it isn’t allowed to touch. It wants, it wants, it wants, it wants, earnest as a puppy, panting and pure. 

A battle ensues between how I feel and how I want to feel. 

I have these desires.

I made a list.

I arrive with a plan. 

I want what I want... But do I want that? 

Do I want to attempt to play out my fantasies, inherent with expectation, with preplanned moves that mean I’m out of the moment? Or do I want to hold my desires in one hand and arrive with the other empty? 

Let my desire be a compass needle, not gps coordinates. Let it be a grab bag we draw from and not an itinerary. Let it be a museum of fascinations that I take your hand and show you around. “Look at this one, so large. And this small one, unassuming.” I’d rather you tour the set instead of cast you as a leading character, invariably becoming disappointed when you don’t know your lines.

My facade grabs desire from behind and covers its mouth, whatever it can grasp pressed to wherever may hurt. If you know it’s depths you’ll judge me. You’ll see it and think I’m ’that girl.’ The one who loves sex and must be easy, accessible to everyone, low value. The one who is experienced and therefore used. The one who has bloomed and is thus beginning to wilt, not a bulb full of potential.

How many hoops must I make you jump through until you see me as a prize to be won, a peak only the strong can summit? The number is infinite and infinitesimal, also inconsequential. No matter how you found her, she’s used once you use her. She's only fit to be discarded. 

I’m resentful. I feel needy. This hunger makes me vulnerable. I want. I can be deprived. Someone has power over me, the untouchable. The wantless admitting she wants. I’m angry to be brought low by you, to be human just like everyone else. Dethroned, it’s difficult not to play power games. I seek again some stability, seniority. I want to be above when I feel so below.

All I can do is pretend or surrender. This is love, too. Waiting for a call that may not come. Like a maiden I prepare my body to be feasted upon. I bathe, scour myself with salts, anoint my skin with oil. I offer myself to you, a sacrifice yearning to be slaughtered. Will you have me? We will see.

I wish it was as simple as “I want you.” I am a kaleidoscope of desire. You’ve walked in on a multidimensional scene in full swing that doesn’t stop evolving. It’s too much for anyone to bear. There's need to feel bad. I’ll make your excuses for you and close the door as you leave.

From the depth of my being a tentacle unfurls and then closes, pulling all this chaos back with it into darkness. My beautiful monster whose face even I can’t love.