Lick Away My Tears

"He brought his lips to my ear. "I would have been gentle with you, though." I shuddered as I closed my eyes. Every inch of my body went taut as his words echoed through me. "I would have had you moaning my name throughout it all. And I would have taken a very, very long time."

Flaws are human, and the attraction of art is the humanity held in it. If we were machinelike, the art wouldn’t resonate. It would be soulless. With life comes pain, insecurity, and fear.

The imperfections are what make each of us and our work interesting. We create pieces reflective of who we are. You need to deepen your craft to fully realize your vision. You’re the only one with your voice. It’s worth remembering that we are blessed to get to create. It’s a privilege. We’re choosing it. We’re not being ordered to do this.

“Once I’d dreamed and breathed and thought in colour and light and shape.”

If you see tremendous beauty or tremendous pain where other people see little or nothing at all, you’re confronted with big feelings all the time. These emotions can be confusing and overwhelming.

“Because your human joy fascinates me—the way you experience things, in your life span, so wildly and deeply and all at once, is… entrancing. I’m drawn to it, even when I know I shouldn’t be, even when I try not to be.”

When those around you don’t see what you see and feel what you feel, this can lead to a sense of isolation and a general feeling of not belonging, of otherness. These charged emotions, powerful when expressed in the work, are the same dark clouds that beg to be numbed to allow sleep or to get out of bed and face the day in the morning. All art is a work in progress.

“I was burning through books every day—stories about people and places I'd never heard of. They were perhaps the only thing that kept me from teetering into utter despair.”

Sometimes don’t play to win. Sometimes choose to play to play. Playing is fun. Some things are too important to be taken seriously. Free yourself to play, to explore, to test without attachment to results.

No two gusts of wind feel quite the same. The tone and quality of sunlight change from minute to minute and day to day. Nature shouts and whispers sensually. You can’t step into the same stream of water twice because it’s always flowing. You are always changing, growing, evolving. The cells in your body are dying and regenerating. No one is the same person all day long.

“No colors, but shades of darkness, of night. Only those star-flecked violet eyes were bright, full of color and light. He gave me a lazy smile before he leaned forward.

I pulled away, but his hands were like shackles. I could do nothing as his mouth met with my cheek, and he licked away a tear. His tongue was hot against my skin, so startling that I couldn't move as he licked away another path of salt water, and then another. My body went taut and loose all at once, and I burned, even as chills shuddered along my limbs.”

Simply be aware of moments—there’s so much wisdom in nature that when we notice it, it awakens possibility within us. Nature has an infinite palette. It transcends our tendencies to label and classify, to reduce and limit.

Don’t you wish to learn? To be fascinated and surprised on a continual basis? I have a hunger to feel deeper sensations, to be open to receiving, to marvel at the feeling of a heartbeat.

“More—I wanted the hardness of his body crushing against mine; I wanted his mouth and teeth and tongue on my bare skin, on my breasts, between my legs. Everywhere—I wanted him everywhere. I was drowning in that need.”

Each of us has a beast roaming beneath our skin, roaring to get out.

The vibrations filling the space around us, the act of sound waves hitting the body, the spatial perceptions they indicate, the internal physical reactions they stimulate - listen to it. Certain sounds can be felt only in the body - they are more subtler vibrations of feeling. Expand your scope of consciousness, close your eyes and get lost in experience.

Darling allow yourself to feel…