Seeing Ghosts

on the lightness of being with everything

Last night, and again today, I realized I’ve never seen my body or myself clearly. The distortion became evident in its lack of presence. I Look in the mirror and like what I See. And somehow, it’s a bit disconcerting. Like the “bodily Stockholm syndrome,” C once described (we’re gonna go with C henceforth, I’m getting tired of He and Him. A bit stuffy for my taste now, apparently.) Back to the moment: it’s disconcerting, like I’m waiting for something to be there, to tell me I’m a disgusting attention whore who’s good for nothing, and something’s surely wrong with me… but the voice never comes. If we’re being precise here, though, the voice never let me come. Because I never acknowledged it. 

My first experience of this recognition, last night, was of grief and deep confusion. I found myself crying in the mirror questioning everything and eventually having to soothe myself into bed to finish the evening with a few episodes of Lost Girl. (Watch it, really.) Grief may seem like a strange response to not having intrusive, disturbing thoughts, but I get it. My longtime companion, the vicious voice, seems to have left me. I recognized it. And in recognition, comes re-cognition; the refiguring of experience and self-conception - the release of abusive narratives through observation without judgment. These thoughts, habits broken through my explicitness. The recognition that those echoes were never mine to follow  - I declare I am cutting them loose (do you hear?!) - I am allowing myself to see the truth of me, raw, open, afraid, and still, loving who I Be. 

Here’s something to consider: if the way you do one thing is the way you do everything (which, ahem, it is), then why not practice the way you Be by fucking mindfully?

Noticing what is happening is an opportunity to write a new narrative in the body. And fucking is the closest to the source I can get. Mindful mindlessness, I like to consider it. Declare a focus and surrender the rest.

Last night, noticing the openness overwhelmed me. I got nervous about the newness of this space. I forgot to breathe. I was filled with anxiety. I must remember my intention. More reminders are, apparently, necessary, despite the tattoos all over my body, the notes stuck to my desk, the cards, and stones, and candles and incense. Remembering is difficult. Forgiveness fills me with ease.

Today my spirit lifted when the thought occurred again, I breathed into the recognition that I was anticipating something that wasn’t there. I noticed how actually different I felt - more spacious, willing to receive. I let gratitude in. I let my love for this body wash over me and let my body take the lead. I noticed my turn on as I caught a glance of myself in the mirror pinning my hair up to reveal my neck. C likes that. It tortures him a little I think. Yum. The moment opened. I wandered to my bed to document this and then…

Mid session realizations scrawled in my journal: I realize some energy had hold of my sexuality - a phantom of restriction. And I let go of that strange tint that seemed to be coloring everything I wanted. The old story of suffering attached to the path of my desire. So what next? I fuck myself like I know he would, because that’s exactly the way I want it. 

All I have to do is go for it, like, Really. THIS is a battle worth fighting. This freedom to feel the whole spectrum. To open so wide to experience. To consume myself hungrily, unconditionally. To alchemize all that is mine to move through.

I’m astounded by how different it feels now that I’ve noticed. I wasn’t giving myself access to the strength of my knowing. The DEEP yearn. The on my knees, spank me please, not so sweet lovemaking but pounding his flesh into my body, softening me, surrendering something: the control I hold onto. That is what I’ve needed. He teaches me by owning his wanting and wanting me to own mine, too. I realize I was only willing to own a fraction of the desire that courses through me. It’s a powerful force, (“and more powerful when you’re naked,” he tells me.) The young one in me, too worried I’d morph into the disgusting whore, perhaps? Or that I’d be too much for wanting more and delighting in my body, as an ex once told me. All these ghosts. That was my restraint - fear of facing them. So instead, they pulled at my energy. Stole my focus. Dampened my orgasm. Stomped on it. Made me feel like a bad actress reciting old lines over and over again.

This restriction I released was living in my belly. It must’ve been, because the difference is in my breathing and its fullness, depth, precision, presence. My presence in these moments is what shifts me into deeper awareness, I surmise, as Bjork’s Debut massages me. 

While I was in Asheville, C fed me. Not just when we joined bodies, but literally. With food, I wouldn’t alone seek or let myself have (did he know?) Even though I’ve let go of so many of the shackles, I still resisted being “bad.” Anorexia is a bitch of a ghost, huh.  Eating ice cream sandwiches for no reason - just celebrating deliciousness. And pizza, and Indian food, and all these rich experiences. I had to breathe into them. Truly they overwhelmed me while I was there. I wonder if he noticed. I didn’t realize the fullness of it until now. 

Let me recount the last day I was there, at which time I did not know what the fuck was happening. 

After fucking on top of a cliff for breakfast, eating apple crisp and cookie dough ice cream for lunch, piggyback rides through the city, and basking in art galleries till dusk, he drove us home to reset. As he got in the shower, I lied on the couch and felt tears welling up. Just a few, rolling down my cheek. I ignored it. Choked them down, even. So not like me, but it was inconvenient, and I didn’t want to deal with it in that moment. 

He got out of the shower and I felt our shared desire rising through the exhaustion of a day of endless eye orgasms. He sent me upstairs, told me he wanted to watch me - something I’m delightfully familiar with… or so I thought. Why would this be different? Well, let me tell you. It was. My whole body is different. That God fuck started something. Totally shifted my nervous system. Maybe you can sense it from the arc of this story - my sensitivity is all over the place. I’m experiencing myself to new depths, new ranges, an expanding spectrum. It’s all new territory to me. Even what felt so safe, so familiar just a couple weeks ago, felt like I’d never done it before. Touching my own body, especially, entailed meeting a challenge I thought I’d already surpassed. Though now I’m realizing, this will continue, the deeper I open. The spiraling, dizzying, beautiful lessons of loving awareness. 

Now I understand why that narcissistic asshole I dated stopped meditating. He told me it was too much to face - a concept I couldn’t understand. I’ve always been facing these ghosts. I recognize that now, too. The layers reveal themselves and I alchemize them. A coward, he was, stuck in avoidance. This ghost? His lack of strength crushed him and I was in the wake of his unrefined chaos. I let go of that damaged narrative, too.

Back to the scene: I’m on the bed, C comes in, sits next to me, intent, present, his eyes seemingly possessed in me for this moment. I begin to trace my hands along my collarbone, but I don’t feel convinced of myself. I wonder what’s happening. Those tears from downstairs are back with me. I try to hold it together but I don’t last more than a minute before the tears are rising, hot and thick through my stomach. I can’t breathe. I gasp for air. Whimper. He’s watching me, not knowing either, and still with me, holding space, letting me process. I am so confused, angry, wishing I could feel something different than this pain but knowing I have to move through it. Acknowledging my feeling of wrongness for experiencing this now when, some unwelcome voice implores, I’m supposed to be fucking myself silly. But I say, “fuck you, get in the hall,” and let my heart open. Until now I had my eyes shut tight, but I notice I have the strength to open them, and we lock eyes. He pulls me close, kisses me, holds me for I don’t know how long. It feels impossible that someone could love me, want me when I’m like this. I have to pinch myself, remind myself it’s not going to disappear. I don’t have to hold on. I’m held. He’s holding me. I’m holding myself. Closer, closer, I keep opening. We’re kissing in a way I never have before. Breathing each other in. Life force transfer. Intentional. Receptivity fully engaged, I’m letting him lead me where he feels my heart going. It continues. I need more contact. I need to be more naked. I need to be more witnessed. I need to be fucked like this. I need to be on top of him. He must see it in my body language because he pulls me over and it feels like I’m floating into exactly the right place. Effortless. I’ve stopped efforting. I’m breathing again to the best of my ability, letting my body be the pilot. I’m observing my way through this experience. Riding the waves - turbulence, chaos. I can’t quite define the pleasure I was experiencing - it was cloudy in the beginning. Full of small questions about what this all meant, why I was crying. All sorts of little narratives invading. If I had to sum it up though: desirable, brutal, wonderful, intense, and most noticeably, Connected. I asked, in whatever ways I had access to at the moment, for exactly what I needed. That’s something I was never willing to do before he came into my being. 

Tonight, through those moments of re-cognition, I peered deeper into my psyche than eye’d ever allowed myself access to, and subsequently, came harder, too. Guttural sounds escape my mouth. I have memories of C inside me two days ago, animalistic fucking, biting, growling, dissolving boundaries. I wanted to feel more free, then, to experience the fullness of the moment that was, indeed happening. Now I see how the expectations of uninhibited bliss hindered me. I seem to have a delay in processing  - my capacity is great and my process is deep. My brain and body create intricate symphonies. My mind masters the mess into pieces of poetry, a chaos I extrapolate into the macrocosm and bring back to our fucking with loving awareness. I’m just a day late. Luckily, time doesn’t seem to be an issue for us. Unattached to what it means, why would it? The dialog continues through Space. And We Are The Space. 

Before I left, after our last fuck of the trip, he said we needed to catch me up on coming - that I hadn’t come as much as he. Now, as I reflect, I see I didn’t let myself. So in my head with those ghosts, subconsciously. Thank God I’ve written this all down, lest I forget (I will, I’m human.)

Never have I been so grateful to have a presence in my life who sees me for me and reminds me of my greatness. “Goodnight badass,” he says, with complete sincerity. And “you already are,” he replies when I ask “am I going to become superwoman?” 

I thought I wanted this in the past, but I didn’t even want myself then. He could’ve been right in front of me and I would have sent him away. I had to love myself before I could let love in. Isn’t it funny, that love can feel like an intruder to the nervous system? That the thing I wanted most, was most terrifying. That I resisted it in my naïveté.  It disturbs the ghosts, the light of love, so illuminating. I’d only been a traumatized little girl relating with other children for most of my history. Things have been shifting. I’ve come into my Knowing - my Woman - my Queen - and waited, so patiently, for someone who would hold me as lovingly as I learned to hold myself - who felt like a safe space.

I remember C saying “I envy the space you explore in and through. I yearn to be that space.” 

Ding, ding ding. 

There have been dialogs like this since the beginning. Shared language. Poetry. Movement. Creation. Loving. Communication through many facets of Being. Openness to more - to exploration - to playfulness. It’s taken me a little while to adjust to the lightness of our dynamic. It is, in essence, rearranging me from the inside out. From every angle. Because with him, I’m learning, slowly but surely, I need fear none of me.