There is what I have, and there is what I need, and they are shoulder to shoulder. They are holding hands, and you would call this admirable. You would call this success.

I cannot argue against it, there is a golden weight to this. This is beautiful, it is rare and raw and true. There is nothing more real or worthy than those clasped hands and the souls they keep safe in their warmth.

Still I am reserved. I am held apart where I should be the bridge that spans the final distance. I am the God Forge, I am the alchemy that wakens slumbering giants, the holy oil that anoints, the subtle knife opening glamoured eyes to true divinity.

But not here. I’m no Pygmalion to open eyes of carved stone. I will not sacrifice my fire to force a heartbeat I cannot otherwise coax forth. I recognize the limit reached, oceans folding over an immovable cliff face, as I face this Almost. You cannot be a drowning tide to a thing that’s never drawn breath, and to sink into the cracks and create fissures would be an act of malice. Bad magic.

I thought my greatest work would be rebuilding the Woman, but she wanted to exist. Her desire and the force of her will propelled her into life, I just had to clear the way. My greatest work is existing, doing what I am meant to do in a continual dance, fallow and fertile by turns. It just is, as the sky and earth and sea are. Simple.

In the unbridged space of the Almost I see a new birth squeeze. In the face I’ve given to this truth I see the next crucifixion, and they’ve left no room for fear. Birds don’t worry about the branches they land on because they trust their wings. Crucibles and crucifixes don’t worry me because I have faith in my fire.

I am reserved because I know I cannot safely relax into the liminal and create. If what I see I am seeing honestly, the faith earned in Almost is not the faith required for this magic. I am reserved because I see that unbridged space for what it is: an open wound, unfinished. The jagged edges are a dire warning to the flesh of my soul, and the truth here is blood red.

I can’t break this stone to force my will in without tearing us all apart; I’ve watched cliffs shear and mountains vomit fire, I know I can trigger the collapse of those palms around the ones who’ve put all of their faith in the strength and wisdom they need from me. I know us both better now, the Almost and I.

I have to be patient and gentle, and this my greatest work. If I find it worthy, if I mean what I say, I cannot do anything less and it will be the heaviest undertaking to date. Working my alchemy on the fundament the Woman springs from, without giving her up or forcing her into shapes that don’t fit her.

I can’t even demand reciprocity, can’t demand the selfish assurances of being met and matched, because it isn’t for anyone else. This is, as everything else has been, mine. To build this bridge we have to work alongside one another, and I’m only responsible for my end. We shout across the divide to create this stretch of common ground.

I can’t deny it would help if we spoke the same language.