There Was Always Disorder and Quarrels

"How do you make it do that?," I asked him aloud.

"How do I make what do what?"

"Time," I said, "How do you make it speed up and slow down?"

"I don't do anything. You just feel it different," he explained in a way that made it seem like the most rational thing in the world "when it's both of us together".

"But you feel it too. Why don't you ever tell me?"

"I'm telling you now. Why do you ask so many questions?"

"Because you give me answers," I told him, "even when you don't, you do."

"And you speak in circles,"

"Only because the circles lead me to you. Every once in a while."

At that, he stopped saying the things from his mind out loud and retreated back into it. But he allowed me to stay there. Mostly, I'm sure, because he wasn't quite ready to leave mine.

*You know you're an addict, just like you were always afraid you would be.*

*Ha. That's not me. It's you.*

*Does it matter? You know and I know. That's all that matters. What is there to win if that is the truth? There is no one to win to ...or win for.*

I thought about the old cliche "like a moth to a flame". When we are drawn to something that may be bad for us, we say we are the moth. We keep coming back, we say, despite the fear of burning our wings. But couldn't it be equally true that we are the *flame*? That thing we think will kill us has been inside us all along? And we see our darkness, only now it burns bright and flickers right in front of us. And it's there, in the eyes of our lover. Because *we ourselves* are the ones who are on fire.

I spent so much of my time with him trying to figure out who was the moth and who was the flame. And it was then, when we each looked inside the other, that I understood it didn't matter. We were both. We were neither. We were all of it. We were whole, alone and together.

One plus one makes one.

My life, it seemed, had been a long quest to find love. But now that I'd found it, I didn't even recognize it. This was so far removed from what I'd been looking for that to attach to it that word, "love"-one that women use about men they presume to "cherish and obey" and men use about women who presume to do so-seemed cheap and impotent.

I wanted to ask him whether he heard me while I thought about this, whether he agreed or dissented. Or whether he just felt me think these things and couldn't put words to them any more than I could. But I knew the question would only cause him to fly away from me so he couldn't be burned. Or so he couldn't burn me. So I only pulled away from kissing him, held his face in my hands, and carefully brushed his hair aside. I looked into the eyes with the flames in them that he so often tried to hide from me. He pulled me back into him and I pushed back away again.

So what is it you think I am addicted to?

The same thing everyone else is. Your Self.

I hated it when he did that, when he saw me clearer than I wanted him to. Or than I could see my Self. But there was also no greater pleasure to me than this particular sort of pain-and healing-that only he was able to give me.

I'd seen the black of a man's dark heart and I'd seen the white glow of those with relative purity. And I couldn't stomach either of them. Each was too simple, too easy, too flat. He was both. And all. He was gray and every other shade, too. And, of course, so was I.

So, too, are We...

I showed him the things we'd done earlier that evening, as I'd felt them in my heart. He took me to the place we first met. We each ordered a drink we knew the other would want most and we shared them together, each sip helping us become less of who we thought we were before. We talked about those people with an arm's length sort of fondness we'd feel for old friends. We marveled at the things that happened since to change us into what we'd become now... A boy from India and a girl from Texas, a Soul from infinity, sharing cigarettes and stories of made-up selves.

He moved his chair closer to me. I thought about all the chairs I'd moved toward all the men before, how they always stayed and let me come to them. Sometimes, they ran and sometimes they tried to own me, but either way, they always left, or maybe I did, because they weren't the one I loved the most. They were not me.

We sat for a while and he said he'd be right back. When he wasn't by my side, I felt him still. But my mind told me his wouldn't come back. He'd leave me there since that's what I deserved. His mind filled with the thought that I would be gone when he returned.

I exhaled when I saw him come back to me. I'd been holding my breath, I guess. But I don't know why.

Wherever you go, that's where you are.

"What do you want with me?" I asked with my voice.

"The same things I want without you. Only I want them with you," he told me, "as it should be".

*Who are you to know how anything should be?*

"And who are you?" he said to me aloud as he gently brushed the hair from my eyes, "You don't even know whether you are the moth or the flame".