"The trick [to a great relationship] is that you have to stay naked. You must be naked."

I met an interesting stranger on Craiglist

"But I mean, you can choose change — you can choose to grow — at any moment of your life.
Rearrange your furniture, read some books, go to a new coffee shop every day — do something that’s different and keep doing different things that are within your realm of control. Do them all the time. Build momentum. New things, new things, new things. And eventually a big decision will come along and you’ll be in a good place to make it because you won’t be pacing around on the internet wondering why things aren’t going your way.
Things are constantly going your way.
You’re constantly given decisions that matter and you have power to choose the cool thing every single time."

"What person hasn’t escaped to the bathroom during a business meeting and made a weird face in the mirror to say to the world: “You don’t know I’m doing this right now. Oh there’s so much you don’t know.” No other moment can so clearly reveal that our public life is all, in fact, an act. An act with a purpose, but an act all the same. Solitude welcomes a self or selves that does not, cannot, appear when in the company of others. Private selves refuse to manifest in public because other personas are at the front lines."

Kindred

parasols:

“I want to live in a world where there isn’t a hierarchy of relationships, where romantic love isn’t assumed to be more important than other kinds, where folks can center any relationships they want whether it be their relationship to their spiritual practice, kids, lovers, friends, etc. and not have some notion that it’s more or less important because of who or what’s in focus. I want to feel like I can develop intimacy with people whether we are sleeping together or not that I will be cared for whether I am romantically involved with someone or not. I want a community that takes interdependency seriously that doesn’t assume that it’s only a familial or romantic relationship responsibility to be there for each other. I didn’t just dream this way of relating to each other up. Other cultures and communities throughout time have had more options in terms of how they construct connection. And we are doing it now. Folks are creating interdependent relationships and community that disrupt popular perceptions of appropriate partnering. I just wonder what it will take to get more of us to honestly evaluate the realities of our love and determine whether we are actually getting what we want. Love is abundant, not scarce. Why would we ever want to limit or narrow its flow?”—http://crunkfeministcollective.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/living-single/ (via glitterpolitic)

It makes me feel good to know there are people like me in the world, and that maybe someday we’ll win it back from every trapped mind who mistakenly believes that love is control, love is dominance, love is expectations, love is dependence, and love is scarce. Ironically, it feels lonely sometimes, believing I have a limitless amount of love.

Stillness

The moment I’m alone, my deepest joy is to be nobody…[t]here’s no longer any sense of external identity. I simply go into the stillness more deeply. The place that I love most is the stillness. It’s not that the stillness is lost…[b]ut when people leave me, there is only the stillness left. And I love that so much. —Eckhart Tolle

So many times I’ve gotten home from spending all day, or occasionally just a few hours, with a person, or people, who I’m close to, eager only to throw my purse in a chair, exhaustedly fling myself down, and, over the course of a long sigh, shed the heavy exterior I’ve held for far too long. And then, free from the labels and the should be’s and the trying to be’s and the fake smiles and the nods of agreement, I’m left to wrestle with the guilt of feeling like a bad friend, maybe even a bad person, for interacting beneath such an intensely crafted self—one that deceives them into thinking I am everything I think they want me to be. Of course this is no fault of their own, as I assemble these roles to play—carefully selecting the traits and the behaviors—and act them out on my own accord. I yearn for the stillness that comes after my long sigh, when the others are gone, and the curtain falls on my act.  

But then when it becomes lonely and still, I scramble and cling. I engage an instant message, or a long distance phone call, or a flurry of texts; any excuse to keep the charade going. I want to be okay with the stillness. So much so that I tell myself, and others, that I am, even that I love it. But in the stillness, the only thing that’s left to do is sit in awe of the unmitigated power of the lifeforce within me—the power within every human—which is terrifying. And beautiful.

On fantasies

I’m laying face down across an unfamiliar bed. Clothes in a pile on the floor, my breasts and hips pressed against the cool softness of luxury sheets, cheek resting on a downy pillow.

You’ll find me here, with a triangle of light cascading from that lamp across the room, dancing across the fall of my lower back and the rising curve of my hip. My shoulder muscles taut as one arm curls around messy tendrils of hair and under my resting head.

The subtle hint of submissiveness in my pose has my mind racing. My anticipation is heightened. My desire for you to slowly extract your every whim from my body is overwhelming.

I imagine spanking. Forcibly draped over the ottoman at the end of the bed, the tart sharpness of your hand against my pink ass.

I imagine sucking. Eagerly choking down your hard-on at the threat of further pleasure-filled torture.

I imagine fucking. Every which way and with every suitable object in reach. I imagine the butterflies of anticipation, the whimpers of momentary fear, the exchange of a sliver of pain for an overwhelming rush of pleasure.

I imagine the strength with which I’ll be subdued; the expectations to which I’ll submit.

I don’t, however, have to imagine the silky wetness that floods between my thighs. It’s already there, long before I even hear your hand at the door.

If feels like an eternity until I do hear you—a rustle of arrival that makes my stomach flip and my lust nearly unbearable. There’s a heavy catch of anticipation in your breath as you take in the scene before you, but quickly regain your composure.

You silently walk toward the bed, touching nothing except two fingers to the small of my back, sliding them slowly and suggestively toward the part between my legs. I involuntarily raise my hips to your call —the curve of my ass vulnerably thrust into the air as an eager, simple offering to serve your desires.

You chuckle in pleasure and amusement and slowly draw your hand away, careful to brush as closely as possible to my aching pussy while allowing me none of the thrill of actual contact. “Patience,” is what I hear. In this moment I know my fate—I’ll be begging for fucking, I’ll be begging to be fucked harder, and I’ll be begging for it to stop when I can take no more.

You pause to take off your skinny black tie. Before moving on to the buttons of your shirt, you slip the two ends through a loop in the middle and swiftly and effortlessly drop the tie as a silky choke collar around my neck. You matter-of-factly inquire, “Are you going to be good?” Your quiet voice is punctuated by a bold, uncomplicated authority. I manage to nod—complete and utter arousal rendering any other response paralyzed. “Perhaps,” you whisper in my ear, “just perhaps, we won’t have to use this then.”

But it will remain snugly wrapped around my neck as a reminder. Besides, I know you’re lying.