Bless me with your favor,

Soften me with your tongue,

Lift me up to savor,

All that you’ve become.

Strike me with your madness,

Soothe me with your guilt,

Cover me with gladness,

Absorb my tear’s lost silt.

Anger all the lost ones,

Pander to their glee—

Hunker down with demons,

Stand—then take a knee.

Lose all that you hoped for,

Gain all that you hate,

Lock the chains to hell’s door,

Abandon heaven’s gate.

My eyes drop to the bowl of lettuce in front of me as I listen to my friends. I keep my head down, shoveling in forkfuls of food, nodding away mouthfuls of restrained words. I was hoping the conversation wouldn’t turn this way but it always does. Guys, relationships, sex—no matter where our dinner dates begin, we always end up here. I want to care just as much as I want to taste the dressing and quinoa between my teeth, but my senses are slipping away. Surrounded by friends in a crowded restaurant, I am alone. I eat fast, craving the space on my plate, the space in my bed, the space to escape these yearning, bleeding, seeking hearts and curl up warm within my own. I am not like my friends. I am not looking for someone because I have already found the one. I am in love with myself.

A hand grabs my empty dish and takes it away. I look up to find cocked heads and sensitive eyes. My friends are aware, but they don’t see me. They see walls. They see a cage. They see a hurt creature, cowering in the corner. I open my mouth to defend, realizing the quick dry words are what they expect. Under the pressure and heat, I reach for my glass, sipping away the difference, the distance, the sympathy stewing in the room. The ice water coats my throat and cools its way down into my widening chest. I can feel the powerful muscle pumping inside. The slanted gazes straighten and align as my friends sit up. Their pity seeps back into the floor. They watch as my mouth opens again, tongue ready this time, fully saturated with the rarely-spoken words:

“I actually enjoy being alone. I’m not interested in dating anybody.”

Their brows furrow, ruffled by the rogue wave rippling across the table. I wait, hopeful for a response, hopeful for a change in the conversational direction and a way out of this trench, but too soon the waitress returns and sets down our main meals. My friends cut the meat and stuff the severed protein in, chewing fast, heads down, curtains of hair shielding their eyes. I pick up my fork and do the same, listening as the familiar words trickle out into the air. I murmur in agreement, pretending to be like them—pretending to have nothing to lose.

Let me loose. Let me go on my way and let me reclaim my sanity in all its glory and all its wonder. And all its hallowed grace. Let me loose to live again. Let me give up the ghost of expectation and vibrate innately with the remnants of a time that was and a place long gone. Let me loose to fixate on the beauty that is pain and the beauty that is heartache. Oh wicked and foul soul, do allow me to sit atop the pillar of solvency and glow with the warmth of the tide of life. Let the raindrops trickle on down and pool at the core of my soul so that my root might be enhanced, so that my sacral might churn with lust--once more. Let me loose to pilfer ancient dreams and cast away the demons of short sight. Let me loose to walk among the dead and sate my sorrows with stories told and laughter bellowing from other worlds and murky depths. Let me loose to go against the grain and wash my curiosity down with the dregs of birthing pains. Let me loose to lose my way again and again and again and again. That I might live once more.