I guess I didn’t realize this part, either. This hungry tenderness, how close to the surface it’s risen. I’ve spent a long time without it, or maybe unaware of it. Only brief moments of need in love, brief flashes of a ferocious desire to cradle your face and pour this into my person. But it hasn’t been a priority. I know what I’ve wanted, what I believe I need. I just understood that it wouldn’t be easy or immediate, that I have so much work to do to unearth my worthiness. That it might be years, or decades, and that it would be worth it. I learned how to be open, I’m learning still how to surrender. I feel so solid now, peaceful and resigned to the work I still have to do. The practical stuff. I think I’ve cleared away enough of the spiritual debris that I can be confident in my abilities to handle the future, but I still have to chew and swallow the shit pills left by bad behaviors and shitty coping. Different fight, similar demons. But I didn’t really think about what it meant to my heart do this work. I just did it. Am doing it. And now I am aware of the ache running all the way through my core. I want my equal. I want the one who understands physics and stops the bullets, the man with the greatest capacity for suffering. Did you understand me then? It’s the space inside you I need, your ability to stand up around me when my knees are weak. I want to share my strength, the things I excel at. My capacity for agony, for joy. Resilience and commitment.