Self Portrait as a Storyteller

Before we become friends, there is something you should know about me.
I'm not an independent person.  I don't aspire to models of individual success.
This is what I need:
to cast vulnerable expressions in casual conversation
to know my desires have a place to land
to be reminded of lightheartedness and struggle,
of children and revolutionaries.

I didn't expect to know these kinds of stories.  I didn't see this for my life.  Stories of pain.  Stories of empathy.
I wanted stability, but now I am learning how to just be in the boat.
With you and whoever else is here and deciding that yes we are all being in this boat.

There was a dragon, and a lady holding a cup, and a battered soggy flag, and they were the same.
They did an experiment.
Where the dragon tried to make herself small
by slowing all of the avenues that led to pain.  As if these avenues were the root, and they would always lead to pain,
and an external strategy was needed to change the course.
The course was of the lady looking for a drink of water.  

The lady did not go very many places.  But each place she went, she tried to find out more about becoming herself, which looked liked learning to not have a self, which looked like becoming an ally to everyone else.  Becoming a mirror.  Becoming a sponge.  The flag ached for a slight cool breeze.

If we become friends there is something you should know about me.
I am not a codependent person.  I don't aspire to the loss of choice.  This is what I need:
to be the insatiable whirlwind
to walk and dance at the same time
to tell you everything that happened in this lifetime of a day
to speak up when you pause for a moment.

I don't want my quietness to be confused for thoughtlessness.
I am basking in the shades of our shared experience.
I am holding back because of my monster complex: the fear of being too much all of the time.
I know we haven't met for very long, but if you heard what I heard about poetry, you might know what I mean. It's all in how the brains go. And I love how you just go and go and go.

The lady eventually lived what she knew. That things could change at any moment.  That it wasn't all waiting. That there was water in potholes and in saliva. She wrung out the flag and collected a few drops.  The dragon grew because it was in her nature to grow and become everything.  The flag flew.  They started a new experiment, which was loving unforever things.  Which was letting go, I mean really.

The lady sewed a heart patch onto the flag because it was in her nature to reflect love wherever she went.  The allies found her, and the dragon beamed.

As we are friends, there is something you should know about me.  I am an interdependent person.
I aspire to the empowerment of us. This is what I need:
to listen to what you have to say
to remind you you are whole and sweet and strong
to absorb how you move into my own moves.
to utilize your metaphors and share your vocabulary
until there is no me for the sake of me,
only what we've made,
and a mutual understanding of how it is moving us forward.