"... and a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle/when she's trying to throw her arms around the world" (U2)

To be clear, I was not looking. I was doing the intentional opposite of looking. In previous posts, and in much of my waking life, I have avowed and averred to any who would listen that I am neither suited for nor inclined towards any sort of serious relationship with a woman. I still cannot believe I am crafting poetry POETRY, for jesussake, in homage to this woman.

Her name is Jessica, and she is utterly captivating. She is warm and sweet, and clever and smart, and heartbreakingly beautiful. She also beat me at Scrabble, which hasn't happened in about 14 years, though I think I subconscionsly let her win, though if I let her in my head I suppose she earned it...but that's really not the point. I didn't know all this at first, except for the clever and beautiful parts, and I thought we had the makings of an open-eyed and world weary sharing of warmth and space. (By that I absolutely do NOT mean simple fucking, though I do have a weakness for beautiful smart girls.) A limited symbiosis, rather, wherein time and affection, within well-maintained boundaries, would be shared for mutual benefit.

Jessica is ethically non-monogamous, or polyamorous. The defining characteristic of polyamory is belief in the possibility of, and value of, multiple romantic loving relationships carried out with the knowledge and consent of all partners concerned. Given my time and seemingly inviolate emotional constraints, her identification as such seemed perfectly congruent with what I would be able to give her. It sounded (and still sounds) like one more of many good ways to live and to be good to the people in one's life. She talked about a couple of other guys she was dating, and I examined at the time and found zero jealousy or possessiveness. Quite the contrary, eventual troubles within those relationships brought no satisfaction, but an unfamiliar empathy and an unexpected instinct to offer solace. I should have sprinted to hell and gone at that point, but I trusted, without conscious thought, that my fundamental cynicism and emotional impotence would prevent any emotional entanglement. At that necessary impotence and self-protection I utterly, spectacularly and monumentally failed.

There was a night in bed when the gates were opened. We joked about the nature of it at the time, but I could sense the gravity. We constructed something that night in our passion and our talk and our physicality, and we have continued that construction since. It's strange and a little wild, the intended and unintentional artifice of opening doors. "Tell the truth but tell it slant" said Dickinson, and I am unable to deny said truth; namely, that I love Jessica without stint or reservation, and that she holds my heart, poor as it may be, in her sweet hands. I believe that she loves me as well, though there's no accounting for taste.

So...Jessica is polyamorous, and I have found upon further review that I am certainly not. I don't doubt her sincerity or intentions when it comes to her life choice, and I can see how it makes sense. I just don't share it. As soon I knew I told her that I could not share a bed with her if she was sharing it with anyone else. Not because I doubt her love for me, or because of any desire for control, but because this place in my spirit has opened for her alone. I didn't know I was capable of participating in love of this nature and intensity, that I had beauty of my own still to offer. Knowing now, though, I have no interest in spreading it about.

So we fought some, and she was understandably angry. I should have walked then. I should probably walk now. There's absolutely nothing fair to her about this, and there's a mountain of hurt laid up for me. I don't want Jessica in a cage. I don't want her to change who she is or do violence to herself for me, but I do want her. She is precious to me in every line, limb and nerve. So I basically lay there dumbly, admitting obvious fault. Because we are smart and loving people, we are attempting compromise, mostly hers. I am mindful of the difficulty, but still entranced and in love with her. I imagine I am something of a villain to her friends, small-hearted and domineering, and I suppose I accept that. Short of simply leaving, though, which I have been informed I am not allowed to do, I don't see an easy solution. I would ask that you think good things for us perhaps, or even pray, as I have no prayers of my own. Until such time as hammer meets anvil, I belong to my goddess Jessica.

much peace