LOVER

1. If you are reading this, I know that you are lying.

   .

2. Aren’t we all? (lying?)

   in several small ways?

   .

3. I know that you get lost sometimes

   in the shoulds and the would haves and the could haves and the nearlys.

   I know some of your thoughts are shocking and pressing

   but you can’t bring them up in an interview or a board meeting

   or lunch with the family

   or on Tiktok

   or where you have to be sexy

   or when people say,

   “hiiiiiiiiii!!! how have you been???!!!!”

   .

4. I promise you. I feel it too. (the weight.) I’m there too. If you dared tell me the truth, you would have a friend. If I dared tell you the truth, we would be inseparable.

   .

5. We know this, perhaps. This is why we smile and say,

   “Fine! Fine! You?”

   .

6. I am always saying this,

   but I get my best clues from the weather,

   the wilderness outside. Nature teaches me how to be.

   As a writer

   and a lover,

   I like to work outside in. (Easier for an introvert).

   .

7. Sometimes you forget about your skills until you’re in bed.

   .

8. There are many hidden boons to writing. It is a litmus test for the soul, for all the cruelty happening under the skin. It is not a substitute for love, but it has its very own lovership. You go the page to work out the mean things and the knots and the deep deeps and the terrible.

   .

9. Sometimes a solution arrives, glistening in ink.

   .

10. Don’t take my word for it, though. I tell stories