three lovers. three bugs. three ways i can keep our love alive when the rest of us has died away, has changed its shape for the better even when it - the love - feels relentlessly abandoned, unfinished, and deserted.
the bee. the moth. the dragonfly grasshopper or maybe the dragon hopper or the grass fly - this combination to meet the strangest and the strongest love I’ve ever known - a love I'm still getting to know, still wondering where will it land, where it will go?
every encounter with my winged lovers is a signal of their stretched survival. the bee - the most relentless in their presence of the three - a blessing when sighted, a warning when stung, a swollen reminder of disapproval. the moth - the gentlest of the three, almost as present as the bee, a blessing in stillness, a warning when erratic, when exposed. the dragonfly grasshopper - the most elusive of the three, the most chaotic - a blessing in disguise, a warning when desperate and clinging to the limbs of your hope, hope that's been disregarded for too long.
all of me ripples through the wings of these three ancient bodies and i must write them down because almost all of me does not want to write them down. i want them to stay alive inside of me, the story, the love and by placing them beyond this body, i fear that will be it, the story, and the love that lives in the story will never come back, never exist again. and that's just it. the story and the love as it was does indeed only exist inside of me now, preserved like an insect in amber resin - this resin, living in the decomposing tree that is this body, that is me.
so now and only now can i let the stories out of this body because they are safely preserved to become as ancient as they feel. a story, a love that is alive enough to inspire the evolution of itself. a preservation of what is ancient and short-lived so i can remember that it is the shape of the story that matters when everything else is gone. and i am alive, the story, the love, is still alive but now the tree that is this body, that is me is rotting, decomposing. this body becoming soil that is golden and holy, that will feed the love and the stories to come. how will i carry and shape the story, the love, in my body so new life, new love can bloom and rot and bloom again into the rustled and rusted soil?
the life span of these winged bodies may be ancient, but the way they are lived - so briefly - appear reflective of my warped reasonings, my cloudland reasonings that it is in my own inability to love anciently, like this body, the story of this body was shaped to resemble only the life span of an insect rather than the ancient part, the ancient flight of the insect. to instead live through every era, through it all, but only to love, to be loved briefly and as quickly as i arrived.
i remember being 20 and still not knowing what it was like to be wanted, to be touched, to be considered - not once. i thought it was worse to be left completely behind like this, completely disregarded in my existence until i was 27 and i was wanted and i was touched and i was considered. it's almost worse - emphasis on the almost - than not really knowing what it is like to be wanted, touched, considered because now something does exist, the love did exist and it still exists and i barely got the chance to even be with it and i rarely get the chance to show that i am worth a loving that lasts longer than the life span of an insect, that i am worth a loving that instead resembles the ancient part, the ancient flight of the insect. the part, the loving, that is preserved in amber resin, that lives in the decomposing tree that is me, my loving blooming and rotting and blooming again.
what do i really mean when i say i am worthy of a loving that resembles the ancient part of the insect instead of the life span of an insect? well - the worker bee has been in their ancient flight for 120 million years and yet they only have a life span of 14 to 42 days. the moth has been in their ancient flight for at least 190 million years, and possibly as long as 300 million years and yet they only have a life span of 65 to 90 days. the dragonfly grasshopper - the dragonfly and the grasshopper have been anciently alive for 300 million years together, dragonflies with the life span of 7 to 56 days, the grasshoppers with the life span of 365 days. so you can see that the life span of my body in love is like the life span of the insect, bound by briefness. i am still unable to resemble the ancient part, the ancient flight of the insect. still unable to be preserved like the insect in amber resin, living in the decomposing tree that is me, my loving blooming and rotting and blooming again. so you can see - this kind of loving still escapes me.
perhaps this is why i have chosen to listen to the stories of longing so closely, as if they are a mentor of my loving, as if they could teach me how to love anciently. i listen so closely and i notice that so much of what i feel is often stretched beyond longing, longing cleverly disguised as an elderly yearning. i guess that’s the ancient part for me, the elderly yearning and that feels quite tragic. with all these drawn out sensations - i feel allergic to what is short-lived, of love that is short-lived, although the ache of it is oddly persistent and also quite tragic in its persistence. it’s like the growing pains of a child, necessary for the survival of all the other aches to come. the feeling of this elderly yearning, if i could attempt to place it is best described by the symptoms of it. a swollen reminder of disapproval, an erratic response to exposure, a psychosis of desperation in being disregarded, unnoticed, never really shown up for.
i feel unbearably unchosen - on the edge of neglect. i wonder what it's like to capture someone and to be equally captured. i think of spiders. i think of the way they capture and weave and feed on the bee and the moth and the dragonfly grasshopper. and i wonder if at least some part of it is reciprocal. that at least some small part of the bee and the moth and the dragonfly grasshopper wanted to be captured, to be woven, to feed the love that is me. to weave a song webbed in reciprocity with the spider that is me.
i find myself praying often, praying to be captured, to be chosen - wondering if the insects pray when they are captured, when they are chosen. do they look to the sky to save them or like me do they look to the clouds to save them or do they rest assured, thankful to be captured, chosen, woven into the web of life itself, honored to feed life so it can go on. so i find myself praying often, praying to be captured, to be chosen, looking to the clouds to save me, to listen, to tell me what to do, to bring me to what i think i want, what i think at least a small part of us all want - to be taken care of, to be cared about with attunement - more simply, to be cared about as we are. to be allowed to question, to wonder, to inquire, is this love the most attuned, the most receptive love it can be, does it return with more expansion on the other side of each inquiry? is my love worth being captured, chosen and woven into the web of life itself, to feed life so it can go on. is my loving worth the ancient part of the insect, is it worth the preservation of the insect in amber resin, my loving blooming and rotting and blooming?
this consideration of ancient loving is not to be confused with forced togetherness, a disguise of a fruitful coercion. sometimes with the most attuned care, the greatest opportunity is in the separation - to liberate the love and care to find its way through even when it means we leave it all behind as we know it - we leave our togetherness behind as we have known it. to be the most loving we can be by allowing the love to settle this time into the life span of an insect instead of becoming the ancient part, the ancient flight of the insect. to let love change shape despite the resistance of a body that is both short-lived and ancient all at once. a body that often struggles to exist with both, to hold both, to value both.
we often say that when one stops searching - that's when the truest love will find you, when this song of reciprocity will be woven into you, when you can finally be captured and chosen to feed life itself. and i want to scream because i don’t know how to stop searching and i don't want to stop searching. i do not want to stop singing, to stop weaving, to stop feeding the love that i am.
my wanting is a cyclical tormenting. a quiet shameful obsession with the addictive mirage of attuned love, of what it would feel like to be able to intimately care and be intently cared about. to show up and be shown up for. to prioritize and to be prioritized not once, but over and over and over again. to bloom and rot and bloom. you know the moments in life where the web of everything you are is disassembled and you are alone as you weave yourself back together? through every single one of my disassembling’s, i have lived wholly untethered, never once have i had a lover with me as i am pulled apart - not once. to say and to show “i got you, fall apart, unravel, i’m here, let me hold you as you are”. i am devastated by this. i am devastated by the life that has passed without ever being allowed to fall apart, unravel, be held as i am in the presence of someone who wants to be there through it all. and i am left to wonder if that's ever even possible, if it will remain an addictive mirage.
i don't have a resolution for any of this - not yet. the bee. the moth. the dragonfly grasshopper, the dragon hopper, the grassfly. every encounter with my winged lovers is a signal of their stretched survival. maybe their bodies, their stories are meant to survive - are meant to signal that there will be another lover. another bug.
i once had no concept of being loved, of loving and i would be alone in my frisky loving and that was all i would ever have. that some love as ancient as it feels, is meant to be short-lived. that maybe i can let new life, new love, bloom and rot and bloom again. i can have a story, a love that is ongoing, preserved and shaped like an insect in amber resin, my loving habituated and attuned and far from short-lived, immersed fully in love that resembles the ancient part of the insect. and maybe, this body, the story, the love of this body will continue to be shaped into the life span of an insect not yet ready to resemble the ancient part, the ancient flight of the insect - to live instead through every era, through it all, only to love, to be loved briefly and as quickly as i arrived.
maybe it will always be both, ancient and short-lived and i can rest assured, thankful to be captured, chosen, woven into the web of life, honored to feed life so it can go on to feed the love that is life itself.
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