GETTING TO AVALON, ONE WAY OR ANOTHER

27 Oct 2013        So close Liliana, oh God was it all so close. And now it couldn't be any further away for me, and after everything I don't even rate enough to get a response, just 90 words- 90 words that cut deeper than a surgeons scalpel ever could, and made even more killing since I evidently am not worth more than that. If another has taken my place than I suppose I can deal with that- but to end it all with those 90 words and no more is the cruelest cut, as if the cost of my soul is worth nothing more. Goodbye.

The strange thing about myths and legends is not so much what the stories say in and of themselves, but how similar they are across time and cultures. All seem to speak to basic human desires and needs, even the ones with some basis in fact are skewed toward the fundamentals of addressing some basic longings.

Avalon, according to the Arthurian legends, was the island where Excalibur was created, and it was the island that Arthur was taken to by three mysterious women after being fatally wounded in his final battle. Depending upon which legend you read, he either died and was buried there, or he is there still, being tended to by the Lady of the Lake, waiting for the proper time to return and restore Camelot. It is supposed to be a magical place of healing and beauty, where everything and anything is possible, and peace and contentment are shared by all. (Which might explain why Arthur still hasn't returned- fuck Camelot, who wants to hang around a round table with guys in armor when he can be skinny-dipping with the Lady in the Lake)

Aside from the obvious christian imagery the legends of Arthur also seem to be providing a message of hope and enlightenment: Avalon is out there, it might be hard to find, and you might have to go through hell getting there, but for those willing to make the journey there does exist a place where all things may be possible.

Now, I don't believe for a second in a literal Avalon- life is too random and imperfect, and the universe is a hard and unforgiving place. But I do now believe that maybe Avalon can be created or discovered, piece by piece, by two people willing to search for it together. As in all the legends and myths, the journey is and probably should be difficult, fraught with heartache, pain, and suffering. If not for these trials how would we be able to recognize or appreciate Avalon once we find it?

I don't really know where my Avalon might be, but I do know who I want my Lady of the Lake to be, and she exemplifies all of the mystery, beauty, love, compassion and hope of any of the greatest mystery women of myth or legend- except that she is flesh and blood and she moves through this world with a grace that defies explanation.

No, I can't really tell you where Avalon might actually be on a map. It could be a house in northern Illinois, it could be a place down in Central America, it could be in Southern California, it could pretty much be located any fucking place as far as I am concerned (although I might have a problem with New Jersey).

What matters is that I have found someone that I would be willing to share Avalon with. Up until now I never would have imagined a woman could move me in such a profound way that I could even think such a thing was possible, but it has happened, and I will be forever grateful. I know that the Road to Avalon will be more difficult for her than me, and I worry that the journey to my particular Avalon may ultimately be more trouble than it is worth for her, especially given the always present concern I have regarding my time on this plane. But I do know that she will find Avalon, and that I will be there in whatever capacity she will have me, and I am truly humbled and honored by the love she has shown me.

So while I don't quite know how to get there, or where it is exactly, I do know that I will be doing everything I can to find Avalon, or die trying.

I pray I will find her there as well.

ONCE UPON A TIME......

So many different stories, each with it's own meaning. Some are little snapshots, describing a specific moment or event and the sensations associated with them. Some are more abstract; moments remembered and interpreted through the filters of time or experience. Are they all individual little tales, disconnected from one another? Or are they all different chapters of the same story?

In some cases the stories are pretty straight-forward, with a beginning, middle, and end, and the events described have a certain continuity and order to them.

But some have a more mysterious, unreal quality that defy any logical explanation, and which make no sense in and of themselves. Do they have a larger meaning; a context that will never be defined by a logical explanation? Maybe each story occurs on some unworldly plane, and some strange ether connects all of them in a way that defies time or reason.

That is the beauty of stories: they conjure up a specific time and place, but the most enigmatic ones defy any kind of acceptable, normal reality, and their true meanings are probably best left unexplained. Maybe that is why the best stories are fairy tales, occurring in strange lands and times, where magic and mystery shade everything that occurs, and sometimes there is no logical explanation.

And each and every one of these begin the same way.

ONCE UPON A TIME.......

....A SMALL CHILD, little more than an infant really, sits on the living room floor of a small 2 bedroom apartment. His younger sister lies in a crib up against the wall. A small twin bed is up against the other wall. On this bed rests a relative, not his mother or father. She hardly ever moves, and the rasping and wheezing that emanate from this form keep the occupants of the apartment up every night. She has to be bathed, fed, and medicated on a daily basis, and the entire apartment seems to exist for the sole purpose of housing this ghostly apparition. The entire apartment has a smell that the child will always identify with sickness and decay, and the memory of this wretched shell of a person will terrify the child for years to come. One day the bed is suddenly empty and the child, without knowing why, feels an enormous sense of relief.

.....A YOUNG BOY receives a book for his birthday. He is still quite young, 8 or 9 maybe, but he has been able to read for several years, sometimes not understanding everything, but always yearning to disappear into a world where there are no arguing parents, no drunken arguments, no beatings for no apparent reason. This particular book instantly becomes his favorite. It is a combination of fairy tales as well as more contemporary tales for young readers. The book is illustrated with the most intricate and detailed of paintings, usually 3-4 per story. One particular story the boy returns to again and again, not so much for the story itself, but for one of the drawings accompanying the story. The story has something to do with an Indian warrior who has been forced to leave his tribe and wanders into a forest where some mysterious witch/ghost lives and tries to trick the warrior into spending eternity there in the forest with her. The boy doesn't understand why the warrior would resist this. There is a particular drawing that the boy spends hours looking at. A woman with long, raven black hair stands surrounded by the foliage of the forest, her face and features obscured by shadows and branches, with just a hint of what her true features might be. She seems to blend/meld with the woods around her. The boy constructs elaborate child-fantasies around this mysterious character, and returns to the picture time and again to escape the hard reality of his everyday life. Later in life the boy will remember this drawing at the oddest of times, and struggle to recall why the dream-life it inspired had such a hold on him.

......A BOY, ALMOST A TEEN has been sent to a summer camp. One day the boy wanders off into the woods, chasing whatever imaginary creatures that had captured his fancy at the time, and becomes hopelessly lost. At first the boy is terrified, yelling out for help at the top of his lungs, and randomly heading off into different directions without any rhyme or reason. After a while though, the boy calms down and sits down on a bed of pine needles and just starts to absorb what is happening around him. He is convinced that he hears a woman's voice on the wind rustling through the pines saying his name, and also is certain that he sees a shadowed figure with long, raven black hair in the shadows; never in his direct eye line, but always on the periphery of his vision. When the camp folks find the boy he is soundly sleeping on the bed of pine needles, completely calm and unafraid.

.....A TEEN BOY, after being berated by his father for some forgotten slight, finally becomes fed up and says something back that he knows will trigger an explosion. The father hits the boy, for the last time. The boy, with a cold calculating precision, proceeds to beat his father to a bloody pulp, without making a sound or uttering a word. The punishment is complete and without any sense of mercy, and when the boy is finished he goes to his room and opens up a book he hasn't looked at in years and stares at a picture that still manages to transport him to a different world.

......IN A SLEAZY BAR in Georgia, a guy is hitting on a woman way out of his league. The woman seems amused and maternal. Finally she gets up to leave and says the strangest thing. Later in life he won't remember the exact wording, but she says something along the lines of : " You are the sweetest thing, and someday you will find the right person, but it won't be tonight and it may not be for a while, but it will happen". For some odd reason this struck the guy for a moment, and registered as a moment that he would not forget. Then he continued trying to get laid.

......IN A SOUTH CAROLINA COURTHOUSE, a civil ceremony is performed uniting a man and woman in marriage. There is no particular passion or fire in their relationship, but each has been damaged in one way or another, and each take solace in the fact that each trust the other not to hurt them in any obvious way, and that perhaps over time something more satisfying could develop. The man believes that just having someone who will accept his idiosyncratic behavior is enough, but inside there is still an emptiness that eats at him.

.....IN THE MOUNTAINS OF BOLIVIA, a man sits on the porch of his "hotel". The owners daughter brings him his food and beer. She has golden brown skin and jet black hair and large dark brown eyes. The man has no sexual feelings for her, but something about her causes a sense of melancholy. She speaks to him in a language he doesn't understand, and her smile gives him the heaviest of feelings. He has no idea what she is saying, and only knows her for a little over a month, but he feels as close to her as he has to anyone, which for some reason fills him with an incredible sadness. When the man finishes his job he keeps enough money to get him back to La Paz and gives the girl over $3000 in an envelope. The curious, confused look on her face when she looks in the envelope only makes the man sadder, and at that moment he has never felt more alone.

....OUTSIDE A MOSCOW FUNERAL HOME, in the middle of winter, a man attends a funeral. As it is winter and the ground is frozen, the people attending the funeral wait outside the funeral home beside a hole in a wall that disgorges caskets one after the other. It is an assembly line type of service where an open casket comes sliding out of the hole in the wall, is placed on a gurney, and then the mourners get to spend 5 minutes around the casket of the deceased before the casket is wheeled up to another hole in the wall and returned to the funeral home, to be buried once the ground is soft enough to be dug up. The dead man was named Vadim, and he had been beaten and then crawled off into an alley and froze to death. No one at the funeral knows or speaks to the American. As the American leaves the funeral an unknown woman with black hair, bronze skin, and large liquid eyes comes up to him and says something in Russian that the man only partially understands. Her tone is kind and gentle, and when she is done speaking she turns and leaves, speaking to no one else.

.....IN A RAIN FOREST IN TAKORADI, GHANA, a man has spent close to a week with a fever and delirium that brings him close to death. After the fever breaks and reason returns the man insists that he was being cared for by a woman with jet black hair and large eyes who held him and bathed him and applied wet towels to his body and spoke to him in an odd language. He asks to see her and thank her, but is told that no such woman cared for him (it was actually a combination of a fat German woman doctor and local male "nurses")

...... IN A SMALL CONFERENCE ROOM, a man struggles with himself. He has information that may be of importance to a woman he doesn't know at all. The smart thing to do would be to keep this information to himself and just mind his own business. The woman has jet black, raven hair, and she moves with a grace and elegance the man has never seen before. Her eyes are impossibly large and seem to be gateways to an unknown universe. The man realizes that he has actually fallen into something like love with this woman, even though she has never shown the slightest interest in him at all. He decides that he doesn't really care whether the woman has any feelings for him or not, he is going to share what he knows and let her do with it as she will.

.....IN A DARKENED HOTEL ROOM, a woman is atop a man, naked and making love. Her hair surrounds her face and she is back-lit by the light behind her, so her face is partially obscured. She tells the man that she loves him, and at that exact moment her features become crystal clear. The mans heart actually seems to stop, and a monumental sadness seems to be lifted. The man wants to cry, and doesn't even understand why, but does realize that nothing from this moment on will be the same.

....IN THE DREAMWORLD OF SLEEP, over the course of years, a boy/man has a recurring dream. In the dream a woman waits in the shadows, speaking soft and low, offering the promise of love and hope and redemption. The man is a bit of a cynic, and realizes that dreams and reality do not overlap, and could never imagine that anyone could ignite the love and passion he would die to share, much less show any interest in him. This only happens in fairy tales. But what if he is wrong. What if there is some strange alchemy at work that brought him to a specific time and place, creating the circumstance that would allow such a thing to happen, and what if the signs were there all along.

Who knows where chance and fate collide. Maybe everything is completely random. Maybe everything is just spinning out of control, and everything that happens is just a complete toss of the dice. Or maybe, just maybe, there is some odd timeless connection between everything, something that defies explanation, something that is there waiting to be discovered if we only have the will and ability to look for it, if not fully understand it. Maybe all of those moments are there just waiting to be discovered, even if it is only once, upon a time.

FIRST THERE WAS LILITH, or: WHAT THE FUCK WAS ADAM THINKING?

Everyone knows the official story: God created the heavens and earth and finally got around to creating Adam in His own image, as well as creating all the beasts of the wild. After it became clear that Adam wasn't necessarily down with the whole wildlife thing God decided to steal a rib from him and finally got around to creating a more compatible mate for him to kick around Eden with.

We all know how that turned out.

What most people don't know, at least according to some ancient Jewish texts and writings, is that before Eve entered the picture Adam had a previous wife: Lilith. If her name is known at all by most people it is for the annual women's themed concerts of Lilith Fair- but even then most people wouldn't recognize the genesis of the name.

Now according to the stories, Lilith was not created from Adam's rib, but rather she was created in the same way and at the same time as Adam, thus making her his equal in every way. Big mistake on God's part. It seems that, in terms of fucking and pretty much everything else, Adam believed that Lilith existed for his own amusement, and that the only acceptable position for such activities was missionary, with Adam on top and Lilith taking the submissive position. What a pathetic, unimaginative dick.

Lilith was not amused. As Adam's equal, she believed that she had every right to make Adam assume the position and let her have her way with him, as her pleasure was just as important as his (I am not making any of this shit up, you just won't read about it in the King James Bible though). She also believed that in all matters Adam and her should be equals, and that as such, she wasn't about to take any shit from him.

To make a long story short: Lilith pretty much bailed on Adam after it became clear that his only interest in her was as his own personal blow-up doll. Now God, being the supreme being, got a bit pissed at Lilith and sent a couple of hoods after her to return her to Eden, which she was having none of. She preferred to wander the earth as an exile from Eden, seeking her own pleasure and paying whatever price there was to be paid.

History hasn't been kind to Lilith: she has been portrayed as a temptress who leads men astray and as a destroyer of children. Since history is pretty much written by men, this is unsurprising. But what was her sin really? To expect the same pleasure and enjoyment and respect that Adam thought was his right doesn't seem like an egregious offense. I am willing to bet that if Adam had a bit more imagination that he and Lilith probably would still be in Eden, screwing like rabbits and laying in fields of clover.

I wonder what ran through Adam's head later in life, after being expelled from the Garden and fathering a fucked up brood of children with his nice submissive wife. Did he ever look back and wonder how things would have been if he had only been willing to accept Lilith as his equal. Did he ever look over at Eve in the middle of the night and think: I gave up Eden for this? Probably not. He was probably like so many other people who don't have the capacity to appreciate what they truly have, and it would never occur to him that, in comparison, Eve would never be able to measure up to Lilith.

The woman I love has a name, but I won't use it here. I will just call her Lilith, and I revel in the fact that she is more than my equal in every way. I happily submit to her every desire, and Eden exists wherever she and I happen to be. The fact that her Adam doesn't seem to appreciate her just pisses me off no end. He lives in a paradise with an angel and doesn't seem to have a fucking clue as to how rare a thing this truly is, while I would give anything to tend to and nurture her Garden in any way she would let me.

Adam was a clueless tool.

The woman I love has a name, but here I will call her Lilith. She is my temptress, she haunts my dreams and lingers in every corridor of my mind, and my senses reel whenever I am with her. I would never do anything to chase her from this garden, for any reason, and I am honored and humbled by her love and affection.

I love you Lilith.

WHERE ALL ROADS LEAD

Strange isn't it? We all lead our lives in different ways, taking individual paths, most of us unaware of anyone else's existence, and yet all of our individual roads will end up dumping each of us off at the same place. We all travel winding, seperate paths, negotiating our way through matters of the head and heart in different ways, trying to find the trail that will lead us to some place of personal satisfaction, hopefully ignoring the fact that no matter which path we take, it does eventually reach a dead end.

Is it better to know how and approximately when your road will end- or better just to acknowledge that it will end at some time and place, in whatever fashion, and leave it at that?

It appears that I am some kind of modern medical oddity: my body has decided that having one potentially fatal problem wasn't enough, so why not have several? I have always been an over-achiever that way. And each problem has specific issues that I am going to have to deal with, and in some cases dealing with one could exacerbate another. All of the scenarios are grim, and all end rather unpleasantly. All of them can be managed or "treated", but none cured. All potential treatments would also result in substantial adjustments to the way I am now living, and would have high probablities of involving other people in having to care for me at times.

And all of this before I have even completed all of the tests or received all of the results back- God I am good.

The reality is that, depending on which of the various afflictions gains supremacy, I could tip over tomorrow should my heart decide to take a vacation, or I could hang around for a while while various cancers catch up in the race to consume me. The "for a while" path also means that while I could last a year or three, at some point there would be a rapid decline in my quality of life coupled with an escalation of painful symptoms. I had a doctor 7 or 8 years ago tell me that I would most likely only live another 3-5 years based upon the degeneration of my heart, so I am not going to put too much stock in the time stamp aspect of anything I am told, but the one consistent fact that can't be denied is where this is all heading and how.

I suppose I have to figure out how to handle all this. The simple fact is that each of us, no matter how blessed or loved, travel each of our roads alone. We may share the journey for stretches, but ultimately we end up at our destinations alone. I will not have my life consumed by treatments or medications that will leave me as something other than myself, with every moment devoted to delaying the inevitable. Nor will I deal with the symptoms by medicating myself to the point of un-awareness. At least whatever pain I am going to have is unique and mine, and I will be myself while dealing with it. Also- if/when things reach a certain point I simply refuse to become someone elses problem, or to linger in an antiseptic hospital environment, waiting for the grains of sand to run out.

As I write this I feel no bitterness or anger regarding my situation, it ain't why- it just is. In a way it has provided me with a focus and an awareness that I didn't have before. Maybe the best way to handle all of this is just to put it in a box, throw it in my own mental attic to collect dust, and just pretend that the physical symptoms are nothing more than growing pains. And that actually is what they are. I have always believed that if a person stops growing or learning, than they might as well check out anyway. I now have no excuses for putting anything off, or for avoiding things that need to be done. I no longer have the luxury of saying or thinking that there will be plenty of time down the road to address whatever needs addressing, and I now know that whatever I want to accomplish, I better get started on.

The only thing that hits me hard right now is the fact that I am completely and totally in love with a woman who returns my love to me in spades. I guess I could be bitter about this, but maybe finding each other at this time and place is the best thing for both of us. In some respects she may be my guide- pointing out and leading me down the proper path, where the road still ends, but the journey there is a wonderous, joyful ride, where I arrive with as much dignity and humanity as possible. And hopefully I can provide a warmth and love and companionship and frienship that she so richly deserves, even if it is in a limted capacity and for a shorter period of time than she or I would like.

So all roads lead to the same place, big fucking deal. I am going to fly down mine, windows down- music blaring, engines roaring. And hopefully she will come along for the ride for a while, until the time comes for her to get out, and continue down her own highway.

I hope she chooses to ride shotgun for a while though.

ALONE, BUT NOT LONELY

The sun is rising and the wind has finally died down. The birds are starting their morning songs, and a lone coyote just ambled through the back yard towards the woods. Here, the house is still and quiet as everyone sleeps. Out there she is probably lost in whatever dreamworld she visits after a night out with friends and family, hopefully resting, still and peaceful in a bed I will never lay in.

I have spent the night listening to the wind rattle the house, and watching the evergreens move to an odd rhythm. Occassionally I went outside for a smoke, wandering through the pines and listening to the windsong through their branches. It was not a bad night, maybe just a heavy one.

Here, everyone was happy to see me for a day, they greeted me warmly, said they loved me, spent a few minutes talking with me, and then went back about their business. I am loved here, but in a rather perfunctory way. I am loved for what I am to everyone here, and not really recognized as anything beyond that.This is ok. I am pretty much irrelevent as far as playing any kind of important role anymore in anyones life.This is as it should be- it means that I have done a good job preparing everyone for living their own lives and finding their own happiness.

I spent the night listening and looking for things in the wind, and everything I found there had to do with her.
I sat in a house that is a home to others, but is pretty much just a place I pass through from time to time. I sat here alone and sleepless, off in my own little world, and never for a moment did I feel lonely.

I pictured her out on the town, finally getting to have an evening of drunken stupidity with friends, and I smiled. I thought of the way she smiles and the way her cheekbones rise slightly when she does, of how she tells me she loves me and the soft pressure of her hand in mine as we drive somewhere. I thought of how she manages to display a grace and humanity under any kind of situation, and how her inherent decency shines through in everything she says and does. I thought of her looking into me as we make love, and how here eyes get heavy and lidded at certain moments of passion.

I thought of all these things and so much more, and at a certain point I realized that the night wasn't a dark lonely place. I will always wonder about what things would have been like had I met her in a different time or a different place, but I also realize that what we have given each other here and now cannot be minimized or dismissed, and is so much more than I have ever had that I have to consider myself lucky and fulfilled, under any circumstance.

Yeah- I spent the night sleepless and alone, but she surrounded me the entire time, whispering to me on the wind, dancing with the pines, and filling me with an oddly peaceful feeling.

Not a bad night at all.

DYING A THOUSAND DEATHS

The French may be fucked up in a lot of ways, but when they nail something they get it so right that it is easy to forgive the fact that they are a bunch of rude, arrogant shitheads.

I have tried to articulate as best I can the feelings I have for a very special woman, and everything that goes in here is an attempt to express to her, as honestly and as openly as I can, how much I love her and how much she means to me. I have opened myself up to her completely, and have held nothing back, good or bad. I am hoping that my words, thoughts, and feelings will mean something to her not just now, but also down the road after I am gone. I have tried to convey to her all of things that I think and feel, and while my attempts may not be literature, they are honest and unfiltered. I have spoken of her beauty, class, and elegance. I have written of how she excites me in so many different ways that I am constantly astonished. I have mused about the bittersweet nature of having discovered someone so right and so natural for me, and of how there is a joy and a sadness at having discovered her at this point of my life, when I can only yearn for more time than I am probably going to be allowed.

The one thing I haven't really spoken about is the subject of this post, and I hope it doesn't offend her in any way.

Which brings us back to the fucking French (this all will be tied together and wrapped up with a little bow- I promise).

In their attempts to turn every fucking thing into poetry, they came up with "La Petite Mort", or "The Little Death", their own term for the actual act of orgasm, equating it with the same sort of transcendence that supposedly occurs at the moment of death, when ones lifeforce leaves the body for another plane of existence. Up until recently I just thought of this as another typically pretentious bit of French bullshit.

But now I get it.

I am not talking about fucking (although I am sure the French are, given that they are a bunch of deviant little bastards), that is fine and nice and has pretty much been what my sex life has been up to this point, and I certainly had no complaints anytime I got laid- but that was all restricted to the physical sensation of the act itself (which again, has it's own rewards), and the feeling never really went beyond the actual act itself.

I am talking about the exquisite sensation of making love with a woman who ignites every nerve in my body. Being inside of her lights me up in a way I never could have imagined, and the wet, warm depths of her transport me to a realm where she and I exist only for each other, and everything else slips away. The way she moves, the sounds she makes, the look on her face, each and every little thing registers all at once and only serves to increase a passion I didn't even know I had. At these moments I want to stay inside of her for hours, our flesh merging and moving as one. What makes these moments so intoxicating is that the emotional sensation is as powerful as the physical, and I literally feel dizzy and off balance, like I am floating in turbulent waters.

This is new to me. I am learning as I go- and sometimes the sheer physical lust and desire I feel for her pushes me close to the fucking category. But she always manages to guide me back to the far more satisfying act of making love, and every movement, every kiss, every whisper, every bead of sweat, thrills me; and each time I want it to last as long as possible. And while I lose myself in her the most important thing for me is that I give her the same sort of pleasure and sensation she is giving me. I can't imagine that I satisfy her in any way near the way she satisfies me but again, I am learning.

Before, whenever I came, it just marked the end of a (highly enjoyable) physical activity. With her though it is a transcendent moment, one where time stops and every ounce of passion and feeling that I have takes over and I feel as if I have truly been joined with her, body and soul. At these moments I know exactly what "La Petite Mort" means, and I can only hope and pray that she will kill me a thousand times before I leave this mortal coil.

God I fucking hate the French.

"MOMENTS LOST IN TIME, LIKE TEARS IN RAIN"

The title of this post is from the movie "Blade Runner", and has always struck me as an almost perfect summary of what we all will have to come to grips with at some point, at least if we have a hint of introspection in our nature.

I am feeling worse every day, and each day requires more and more physical effort to get through. I have grown appallingly weak, and the simplest activities drain me to the point of exhaustion. I am kind of fascinated by the changes I have been going through, and actually accept what is happening most of the time with a weirdly morbid humor that very few people would understand. But lately this has been tempered by the fact that I have started to account for what impact I have actually had on the world around me, and have also started to realize that there are so many things that I have missed, and will miss out on. I have also recently been given a glimpse of a path that I will never be able to fully explore, and it makes me a bit melancholy when I think about the things that could have been.

But what makes everything even more bittersweet is the  knowledge that I have been given so many memorable moments by a woman who can never fully understand the impact she has had on me, and it bothers me that when I do exit stage left, that all of those moments may be lost in time, like tears in rain.

There are so many:

Listening to her speak to her children, not only like a mother, but as a nurturing, caring person engaging with another unique individual.

Watching her walk away from me with her shoulders slightly raised at the edges, the perfect vee of her torso ending in the impossibly perfect curvature of her hips and ass.

The way she touches me and holds me when I am in incredible pain, never saying or doing anything at these times that make me feel more self-conscious than I already feel.

The liquid beauty of her eyes, which haunt me always. They contain such depth and humanity and convey lust, sadness, warmth, laughter, and every possible emotion swims within them depending upon her mood, and I could lose myself in them for hours.

The soft, delicate, ethereal form she takes on when sleeping: it is like she has been transported from some mysterious renaissance painting and dropped into my bed, taking on a stillness and beauty that takes my breath away.

The golden hue of her skin- so perfectly smooth and soft that no silk could ever match it.

The fact that every conversation with her has meaning- she can excite me on an intellectual level as much as she does sexually and emotionally, and everytime I speak with her I feel an electricity that is normally reserved for matters of the flesh.

There are so many more. I don't think there has been a single moment since I became involved with her that was meaningless or without value, and that is because she has a value that cannot be measured. She makes me a better person in so many ways, and she thrills me on so many levels that I can't begin to fathom how she does it. And it bothers me that these could just end up being fleeting moments that will be lost and forgotten with time, when each one should be carved as a monument to what can and should be between people who are in love.

I like to think that I am above such things, but the reality is that I all too easily succumb to anger and self pity at times and rage against the fact that I am denied the one thing that has brought me a measure of solace and peace, and that I have to settle for less than I want. But that is also the most valuable thing she has given me: the capacity to feel the rage and anger that bubbles up at times means that I have finally found someone who touches me in a way that makes me believe that I too have value and worth. And if I have the capacity to love and be loved by someone who is so much better than I on so many levels than maybe everything I am going through is worthwhile.

All of these moments, each and every one of the emotions she inspires, they deserve to last far longer than I do. Each one of them needs to be waterproofed and defiant in the face of the strongest rainstorm, and the tears can be lost in the rain, but never the memory of what caused them.

God I hope I am causing her more good than harm.