When I left the androgynous world of tomboyhood, a little manliness survived and kept the woman I became company. This man takes over my dreams so that I can sleep in at night. He wraps me all round in the choking arms of reality and leads me half-alive away from the stormy waters of life’s petty plights. He leads me beyond the still, eventless waters of the everyday in which miracles are daily drowned. He is the shore of salvation where Love and Hope and Fables cover me in shades of laughter and contemplation. For the sake of my sanity his shadow protects me from the light of truths that blinds.  He gives me friendship or enmity to suit my moods. He is the stranger that gives the home its meaning.  Since to know is always in part to imagine, he reveals his true self in pictures, playing sweet tricks on my imagination. He resides within this flesh that folds, this body so amply proportioned, these lips running over with lust and color. He is not my blood but the soul that makes it quick and alive. In the end, it will outlive this frilly foolery of femininity and survive me.  Since the world wants every piece of me but the bit of him in me, there’ll be something of me leftover, something for the world to discard however it pleases.

Photo Credit: Karin Wells Studio