Episode 51: The Work Pt 2. (Not to be confused with Big L’s The Work Pt. 2, although it is fucking dope)

MY WEIRD SEX LIFE!!! EMBODIED TANTRIC SEX PRACTICES!!! COMBAT BOOTS!!! A weekend of torment? WHO KNOWS!!! ALLLLL the PARENTS!!! COMMUNICATION GLITCHES!!! 6 months of work in 4 days!!! 50% MORE PHYSICAL SENSATION!!! BEING A GOD?!?! We need to check our priorities here… it’s about loving the person your boning and growing community gardens, AMIRIGHT?!?! APOLO WITH HIS CROWN!!! A Sunday devotional. TAROT CARDS!!! LIGHTNING STRIKING TWICE!!! BUDDHA!!! MIRRORING!!! & eventually, I always make the thing or fix the thing. Well, not that one cheese scale I tried to fix like 8 years ago for like 6 months before I gave up, but really. I think that’s the only thing I didn’t manage to fix with my sheer willpower. (That, and like, all of my failed relationships *laughs hysterically in despair*)

EXCERPT 1:

“Rumi is attributed to saying…

‘Your task is not to seek for love,

But merely to find all the barriers within yourself,

That you have built against it.’

And it isn’t until you are standing in front of another person with eyes brimming over with love for you. That you really see these barriers for what they are. Motes and defenses, walls and armor. How can I ever trust again? That someone will love me enough to stay.

I’ve been playing out this same old story, where I’m the worrier, the one who cares more, who loves more, who invests more, and wants more for so long.

What if, what if this time it’s different?

What if they stay?

What if I’m the most beautiful thing they’ve ever found?

What if it all works out? I say to myself as I pull another tarot card, the tower, the collapse, the leveling, the destruction. But maybe it’s of my walls if my perfectly positioned defenses. What if it’s the collapse of the old story I wonder as I draw another card. The 3 of Swords, three swords driven into a heart the most common depiction, heartbreak suffering loss. But what if the swards are love too. What if they are the only thing strong enough to get through my armor, what if the three swords are communication, love, diligence. And again the 10 of swards, the next card, betrayal, backstabbing, defeat. But what if this just represents the pain I have overcome, the lies I have been told, the betrayals of trust I had to live through to get here.

What if?

If love is blind then count me in.

Let me sit in this story of triumph, the next card the 6 of wands, resting squarely with the laurel wreath upon you, Apolo with his crown, crowned the nobel laureate. Victory and honor.

Yet heavy is the head that bears the crown.

With love comes responsibility. Here, do you, Mary Olivia Wade, take this heart to be your faithful companion. To have and to hold.

Are you emotionally equipped, to work through hardship and difficulty, to hold compassion for yourself and a whole other person. Are you willing to take a long hard look at the things that trip you up, the places where you are cruel and unwavering? The stories you have built yourself a home in.

Can you look at these cards, can you ask the universe for guidance, and remember that there might, there may be, a positive outcome?

Woman who catastrophes love, are you capable of having faith?

Are you capable of holding still when you would run?

“And can I touch your skin, and stare into your eyes until I am certain, that you will not fall in love with them instead of me?”

A line from one of my poems.

Because for me, trust doesn’t come easy. I can trust that the universe knows what TF it’s doing, I can see that clear as day. But to trust you, to trust that you want this as much as I do? Now that’s a feat, an almost unscalable mountain.

But I am climbing it, hand over hand, rope tied to my waist, and hope caught in my mouth. I am climbing it.

And I plan to keep climbing. Even if I hit a boulder or two. Because I think you’re worth it. And that’s about all I know right now.

So anyway, let’s get back to our regularly scheduled music programming.

Here’s one that’s been on repeat in my car lately and was through this whole trip.

Here’s ‘Every Color,’ by Luca Fogel

Because ‘Sometimes I forget, when I get all worked up, that you can find every color if you look close enough.’

And I’ll follow that up with, ‘Don’t Fade’ by Vance Joy, which just has this expansive quality. And feels like this whole visit.

Because I really ‘could have held you like that, in my arms’ until the world disintegrated to dust around us.”

Excerpt 2:

You kiss me.

And every ghost standing in my kitchen evaporates.

Chet baker croons my funny valentine, in the background, you wrap your arms, we sway in the kitchen.

I stood here at 20 years old.

In love, swaying while the eggs burned.

I stood here,

Alone, heartbroken, with the ghosts of coffee and whisky, with his voice ringing inside my heart.

I stood here and put the pieces back together, making another cup of green tea.

You are here.

This point on the map.

The epicenter,

Of my life,

Of my love,

Of my heartbreak.

You are here.

And your lips move through space to meet mine.

Unaware,

That they are traveling through space, through monoliths of the past.

And when they touch mine, sparks fly in every direction,

Burning through my history,

Torching my volumes of books, my neatly stacked suitcases. Lighting the candles in the dusty hallways of my imagination.

Running desire like a riptide through my capillaries.

My chest wills itself not to explode.

My mind flashed bright blank like an empty canvas.

What new story will your hands paint on my skin?

I lie on a mattress on the floor covered in blankets and pillows shrouded in a canopy,

wrapped in candlelight and oils.

And you stare into my eyes,

and touch me and breathe.

Another breath between us.

Asking me to guide you.

On your knees.

Leading your hands like branding irons.

Janette Winterson couldn’t have written it better.

You loving me.

A Sunday devotional.

Amen to your thorough attention.

Amen to your eagerness and humility.

Amen to your hands reaching for mine in the dark.

Erasing all other lovers from my skin.

An accidental purification.

A psalm read to the tune of hearts racing, legs shaking.

Born again in the flood you command from me.

If the body is Buddha then you are enlightenment.

Too bright for me to look at directly.

But I can’t look away.

And I have tended this jade garden,

attuned to every leaf and flower.

It can sense all of you,

feel all of you, as you walk through the gates of wrought iron and steel, entering lightly, leaving on tiptoe.

Yet bringing with you a storm.

Lightning striking twice.

I always wondered what it would be like to feel this again.

It is more.

It is always more.

Because I am.

And with that. Here is ‘Enter Lightly,’ by David Grey, followed by ‘Edge of Desire,’ by John Mayer”