spring showers and flowers
romancing my friends, lust and self-coercion, attachment and dry solo-polyamory
only two days ago, the sugar maple tree just beyond my window was still bare naked, not quite ready to show her leaves.
in spring mornings at the altar, i would gaze at her for a moment or two, seeping in a quiet reassurance that nature moved at no other pace but her own, that she will not be rushed.
she reminded me that even though there wasn’t much to show for it, her erotic life force was unfurling within, savoring every droplet of water gathered in the winter, quenched by the moist of root and bark, taking her sweetest time.
and as she eventually spirals open towards the sunlight, stretching and yawning, her morning dew dripping wet from last night’s rain, a gentle relief uncurls within me with a soft moan.
romancing my friends
the last two days marked the beginning of my 9th month here in Chicagoland, and i can hardly recognize myself nor the life that has unraveled for me here.
with the vision of what i desired fortified within me, and the intention and willpower to see it through, i feel immensely grateful for the community that has showed up to build with me here.
some highlights include—
falling in love with a new friend, whose lively laughter makes my heart smile and whose presence and care has been the warmest miracle. to witness her fire, to love her fight, to choose our friendship, and to be loved by her has shaped my experience here in ways i could not have imagined.
the soft romance of transmasc friends in tough times. i love the way we are selfless in our care, that together we each other struggle in our own way to receive from one another, all while we each long to give of ourselves, of our medicine, our wisdom, our shared experiences across culture and gender. between quiet moments and homemade meals, i’ve found a wordless belonging.
family dinners at my place, the heat of a dining table spread with malaysian food, or thai, or make-your-own-laksa bowls. leaning back into listening and receiving, or showing vulnerability to be understood. bellies and heart full with the kind of cosiness that only many warm bodies in a spacious studio apartment can create.
friends who pick you up at the airport on short notice, friends who buys groceries delivered to you, friends who give you money, friends who petsit your dogchild while you frolick, friends who linger at the lake with you, friends dropping off herb medicine in many forms, all for nothing in return.
also— already three gentle heartbreaks, and here i once thought, not too long ago, that i wasn’t a romantic. it turns out, i haven’t quite fully softened into and embraced the sensuous, insatiable and polyamorous lover that i am.
and no, not just the lover of lovemaking and long pleasure, but also the lover of a soul-kin and bosomy body. a patient and shy boi, ready for the right moment in which i am allowed to kiss every curve of their neck and chest, my lips a messenger of my desire and longing not just for their sacred sex but their longlasting wellbeing and the expanse of their wisdom.
i want to love all of them, in wholeness, and not ask more of them than they are willing and capable to give.
on my dating apps, i’ve said that i want to fall in love with friends, to enjoy the merrymaking of getting to know one another, to feel if i can truly be myself around them before letting them into my softer parts.
but it seems i’ve contradicted myself by falling into a few spells, eager for the drama of romance and lust that sweeps us away into anchor partnership, only to be told that the broom doesn’t want to fly that way, “at least not right now.”
it’s only natural
lust and attachment often get intertwined because both are natural physiologies to humans. skin hunger gets fed by oxytocin and endorphins in sexual exchange, and our attachment templates might get activated because our physiological needs and desires are being met, even if temporarily.
if the source of our supply is unpredictable, or mirrors parental dynamics, our survival mechanisms kick in. unless we have more practice in being securely attached, our nervous systems play out the push-and-pull* of wanting and needing something so badly that you can’t seem to have it. (also known as anxious, avoidant and disorganized attachment styles.)
we do what it takes to sustain the source, or move further away from it in fear that it will eventually subside, because in the past, it has. we might fawn or flee, get anxious and gnarly, or freeze up— all acts of self-preservation that make it hard for intimacy to flourish, healing to happen, and autonomy to be exercised.
an internalized self-coercion has taken place where, for example, i often lead with my sexuality to both attract and sustain a source of attention and physical intimacy.
i self-coerce into sexual acts, put on a tip-worthy performance of playful prowess because i’ve been sold the idea that my sexuality is my worth. and if i’m worthy, then maybe i am finally loved. and if i’m loved, i would belong.
the aftermath of this imprinted traumatic response jolts my nervous system, awakening me to realize there is a much truer, buried longing for care and anchor partnership** running the show, beyond the sexual drive.
by refusing the entanglement of sexual fawning and coercion, again and again, all while attempting to meet my physical and relational needs, i often find myself bridging a gap in which grief, shame, resentment, loneliness and longing resides.
and as Audre Lorde has spoken, “the erotic is measure between the beginnings of our self of sense, and the chaos of our strongest feelings.”
healing the trauma spell of sexual coercion, fraction at a time, is indeed, an erotic practice.
*that push-and-pull tension, as i’ve learned just today from a friend alexx, (though in a different context) is what binds a relationship together. this bind could either be generative and strengthened, or mishandled and rupture.
**i define anchor partnership right now as the romantic and sexually intimate practice of building secure attachment. let’s grow and heal together, let’s choose one another, let’s be in the easy and hard next to each other for as long as it feels right for us both.
secure attachment in solo-polyamory
as a solo-polyamorous being, i want to be in love with many beings, to play within dynamics of many textures and intimacies like the variance of floral nectar.
i want to care for and be cared by many lovers and friends, dissolving the hierarchy of whom i turn towards in my capacity to build relationship with.
i desire a smattering of soulmates across the galaxy of my relationalscapes, each person a precious star i’m madly in love with.
and to be able to do this, i must, oh i must, have a sanctuary of self.
a home in which i inhabit to feel no one but me, to feel the spreading of my own energetic sovereignty, the etheric space in which only i exist.
i, as in the essence of divine nectar that takes shape as me. trans nonbinary, slutty and sultry, skin hungry me.
and when inside my own energetic sanctuary, i am face to face with the truth of my being and feeling.
this way, what isn’t mine can drip away, and what is left, albeit mine, isn’t always pleasant nor easy to bear.
***
it is hard to ignore the encasing around my heart, a generations-old protection mechanism that, left untended to, morphs into breast cancer, and kidney failure, and hypothyroid, and early death.
the encasing is made up of shame and resentment, and the gentle chipping away of it cannot be one of force, but instead, of surrendering it in totality to the loving embrace of Quan Yin, or Kali, and my ancestors.
divine forces, infinite and transcendant, dissolve the encasing, melting away and revealing a heart mangled by patriarchy and coercion.
my somatic trauma resolution practice kicks in, and muscular instincts on how to move with the wave of rage, floods my body and consciousness.
in my pain, i am held and protected by the great mother, be it Kali’s fierce beheading of the harmdoers, or the surrender into Quan Yin’s unconditional compassion.
rage transmutes into grief, and grief shapeshifts into a felt sense of love. but not before finger-curling screams, punched-up pillows, and wails of sorrow.
***
i’m thankful to be in a place where rage no longer has a strong grip on me, and i often let the grief beneath it flow to songs about heartbreak when the bind that holds the tension finally dissolves.
as for my slutty self, they keep coming up against the grain of sexual fawning (and by definition, sexual coercion), be it by self or the other, and in response, i recoil into my sanctuary of self like a wounded kitten licking itself back into the embrace of mother panther.
and in the sanctuary of self, i am bolstered by the anchoring into my own roots, the protection of my energetic armor, the feeling of my own spirit, and the acknowledgement of my own being.
i emerge feeling devoted yet again, patience once more, and the longing is temporarily subdued.
this. this is the secure attachment to self that emanates the siren for a partner with shared capacity, if only so more and more of my heart can be revealed.
***
as a solo-polyamorous person, my relationship to self is a home in which i feel my own wholeness, which allows me to flow into and out of the relational dynamics of a romantic partnership, where we can embody our inter-sovereignty, especially when it comes to blissful sexual exchange.
and while i’m not in a place to have sex with friends (literally because of attachment healing), i know i can say that being romantically in love with them also means that secure attachment can exist in many forms.
its just those darn feel-good sexy hormones (or the desire for them) that mix with the imprinting of parental (ie. attachment and developmental) trauma that makes being a slutty solo-polyamorous person so cavernously dry for me right now.
wow beautiful and intriguing piece, this was a pleasure to read