emmajeanisnotmylover

[emmajeanisnotmylover]

faerie peninsula.

I'm running around austin and it's 90 degrees but my head, it's still back in michigan with you floating through the flaming tree tops and whispering I love you and my head is on fire with the memories of us rolling in your bed while cool october skies wheel overhead.

you greeted me with the greatest of chariots ushered me in with kisses and soft landing you stuffed my arms full of root vegetables you helped grow and gave me the keys to your kitchen you showed me there were witches to be found and I began to see the cords falling into place you made me cozy in your backseat bed and ferried me through the ecstasy of a lightning storm rolling wild, all up and back down the peninsula while superior yawned and danced the rain came pouring down all over and between us asperging the fae saw it all and clapped and named it sacred I heard them in the thunder and the shaking trees. I baked a bleeding pie all from fruits your fingers touched and saved, just because I asked, all summer long you pulled some strings and I did that stubborn thing where one thing goes wrong and suddenly I can't be pleased for anything. I'm sorry for being this way. I am working on it. we pushed through with love and care and came and went and came again (and again) wind swept down your street through leaves like I haven't seen since my childhood and kissed my cheeks while I grasped your body under the sheets electrons jumping from your skin to my fingertips and back again to feel your heart beating under muscle flexing under skin is a holy thing. I planted kisses on every inch of you I could reach and I buried a piece of my heart in the garden it's small enough the soil would have absorbed it completely by now so it will live there in the land with you for as long as you remain.

[emmajeanisnotmylover]

a life worth living.

I want to be drunk with you. I want to fight over washing the dishes and politics and vaccines and family dynamics I want to love you and forgive you and dance with you in the moonlight, naked on the shores of lake superior. I want to question the strength of our bond only to come back tenfold after talking it out all night or even fighting for a week I want to sink to the darkest depths of my jealousy when you go out on a sleepover and feel confirmed and renewed and loved all over again when you return to me in the morning I want to sail on calm waves and stormy seas and kiss your face all the way through I want to fuck you for hours on end strap up to rail you until you come then let you string me up like a wild animal tamed by your voice, low and steady in my ear. I want to be sober with you. I want to talk for hours about philosophy, dreams, and visions waxing poetic and apocalyptic about possible futures I want hot tea and reading to each other in bed I want an untamed garden we tend together by the moon and rich meals for dinner with delicious drinks and dancing in the kitchen while we clean I want rewards to encourage each other through trying tasks I want scorpio intensity and scorpio pleasure and scorpio ease I want simplicity. I want complexity. I want it all with you. no compromises. I want to dance with you til the sun rises one night and love you while the moon treks through the sky the next I want to go to bed early with you with warm tummies and exciting books and pass out purely in each others arms I want to fight unknown monsters with you I want to share a hearth worth defending I want to build a life worth living I want to survive with you I want to craft new worlds.

[emmajeanisnotmylover]

midsummer.

on the very last eve of june in the fresh new swells of summer we love each other down and deeply on the shores of little pleasant bay we are surrounded by savage winds and kissed by furious raindrops - sent to us by fond calypso herself - and I am kissed by you, yourself wild and lost to sea, we are surrendered to roiling waves of divinity I love you, I love you, I wish to roll you on my tongue for leagues of infinity the wild whims of the atlantic rage around us and yet we are protected divinely connected a perfect calm in a windswept storm I love you, and you are we, we are they we are the same interconnected we express the earth the air, the fire the water return, return, return, return we roll and dip, flip, capsize our scorpio water hearts blazing in the coldest light of this ruthless, sunless morning dawning over little pleasant bay. how can I sleep when there is still so much of you I want to love to know to taste to touch? how can I face the day when I haven't yet had enough hours with you on this plane or the next one? don't you want to run, not walk? I see you running all day and I'm no runner but with you, I couldn't say you bring me to new heights and lead me to fresh depths of my own oceans for you I would choose to suspend all doubt, all fear all disbelief.

my heart on the winds I dream this midsummer morning of walking with you to the edge of all known earths and into every realm beyond. my heart sunk down through untold fathoms resting on the unseen soft and sandy floor deep and gentle safe and anchored endlessly buried in your depths I see now that you are the siren calling me home with a love in your voice that few understand and even less extend it doesn't have to hurt not any part of it. I know that now. you show me in every way you choose to love me.

[emmajeanisnotmylover]

hieros gamos.

your touch, a charm your kiss, a trance green man that you are abundant, overflowing sprouting grasses, blooming, leaning in your tiger's eyes hold me close while you and I merge deeply your sensitive skin inside me like silk magnetized and ravenous in awe and in love, and even more than that gently spreading heart salves on unseen wounds you touch your tongue upon my skin (a sacrament like none before it) and split me open with such care I am opened to gaia I am opened to lilith I am opened up to sky and down to earth to cosmos and the underworlds to volcanoes and to rains to winds and oceans I am opened to artemis, persephone, and parvati I am between the worlds and rooted in you rooting through you over and around your stamen down through your blood, your bones, your stones your water, your pollen, your nature and down into the earth herself I am rooted through you and elevated into the heavens I am the tree of life, of this realm and every next one my throat is open, that holy portal from voice to vulva I crest and break over you, over and again through you, and around you and the most primal holy light shoots from you, through me from tip to top up through sibling trees and out to stars down through soil and bedrock engulfing ancestors plunging straight to the core of the earth. in the service of aphrodite through soft skins on soft skins scar tissue is made and remade new again alchemy pouring through our pores we exchange molecules and magicks through our fields, our fluids, saliva, and breath every part of me ever misused or abused ignored or unseen passed over for surface pleasures and cheap thrills as you see me, worship me, pleasure me whole and drape me in the finest of green gowns ever known to the gods woven of bluebonnets and grama grasses firewheels and prairie dropseed you tuck a thistle behind my ear and flowercrown my stigma with sweet reverence and love you hold me up to gaia, selena, and great mother - in your arms, I am safe. in your heart, I am seen. together, we create new worlds and sow new dreams.

[emmajeanisnotmylover]

joyless.

I don’t dance anymore. the men, they ripped the heart right out of me over many nights on many dance floors, with every unwanted kiss and wandering hand with sweaty paws and damp nuzzles on my neck they slowly pulled my bloody beating heart right out of my chest I have watched them take advantage,  these men who barely know how to dance these men who learned just enough to boost their own ego by being able to touch and control a woman’s body these men who’ve been dancing only a fraction of the time that I have just long enough to persuade innocent girls who have newly discovered the allure of this ethereal craft and women who want more, want more want to look good and talented on the dance floor - he's learned just enough, or more likely hasn't learned anything at all and is simply gifted with the audacity men are so blessed to be naturally endowed with - in any case he's able to convince her that he holds the secret if only she would come over to his house and pay him money - her money, which is still about 83 cents to his dollar - so he can touch her out of the sight of others and I watch the men in charge of these scenes who have voluntarily taken on the safety of a community where women are disproportionately preyed on and women get to choose the possibility of new trauma vs. the possibility of new joy every time they accept a dance with a man - these men in charge they watch and they do nothing they watch and apparently are unable to learn they watch and they don’t see what I see - or more likely just can’t be bothered - so I tell them. and the man who kissed me three times on the neck without consent and made unforgivably crude comments in my ear all while touching my body on the dance floor where I am supposed to experience joy that man is still welcomed with open arms in the rooms where I no longer show my face because I tell the men in charge and they do nothing and the women, I tell them too and they shrug and keep going to those dance floors because it didn’t happen to them so I guess it doesn’t matter and they keep giving money and friendship and dances to these men who refuse to keep us safe and all my friends say:

“I’m sorry, I have to go. My mental health, you know.”

and every time another friend says that, all I hear them saying is my mental health doesn’t matter. they must not have heard the anguish in my voice every time I ever confessed that dance is the only place in my life where I experience joy. and they don’t seem to care that I deserve to experience joy, too. that I no longer have access to this medicine. and everyone talks about supporting the "community" but I stand now on the outside watching the people I thought were my community and instead of solidarity and mutual aid and community support - instead of everyone standing up and demanding better remedies better leadership better standards - my friends they leave me behind, unsupported. and they keep going back to drink from a poisoned well. and I watch and I am distraught for not having any water to drink at all but I know that dying of thirst is better than paying a miser's fee to drink from the well he poisoned himself.

and the men they plan more dances and I am absent from them all. everyone says they miss me and everyone says they want to dance with me and I stare blankly back at them because I watched them trade me for the predators they chose to keep. I watched them make that choice over and again .

and everyone wants to dance with me but no one is doing anything it would take for me to dance again.

[emmajeanisnotmylover]

where the heart is.

you remind me what it's like to be young and full of love and overflowing with boundless life force, wielding vortices of creative energy - simply by virtue of making choices and chasing a dream. you remind me what I love and what matters most to me - you remind me what feels like home. you awakened me - I didn't realize I was even sleeping all this time? three years stuck in a mucky muddy gridlock, bound and gagged by rotting cords, fighting to get free for so long, a deer snared in a trap - exhausted I have just been laying here, half-conscious and frozen in panic - and I don't mean that I needed to be saved but you did come upon me there and though you found me broken and thrashing and bleeding out - you loved me anyway. and you stayed by my side. and somehow that was enough. your love is a salve a mystery to me of the oldest kind and you didn't save me but you did stop the bleeding so that I could breathe deep in your shelter and find my way out. thank you for waking me up and thank you for waking up to me. your love has brought me home to myself. your love has set me free.

[emmajeanisnotmylover]

tidal force.

winging away from you once again I am leaving you again, again, again. and another new year yawns and stretches out before me, it is wide and winding and covered in question marks and marked by Tulsi Holy Basil, Awakening. Look at her: Waking up! I miss you already. I miss you in all the spaces where I want to be building together. and I am home and I miss you on my couch and I miss you in my kitchen and I miss you kissing me naked and ravenous in the hallway where we can't keep our hands off each other as we tumble between the bathroom and the bed. I miss you and you are also with me. it's always that way with you - a problem is never a problem, in your presence a conflict beheld by another under your gaze dissipates into the flow of the river the laws of gravity are obeyed always in your sweet water arms, the path of least resistance - not a defeat, only true and right and patience and love. I miss you and what could we have to worry about? after all we are but earthly bodies of water ruled gently by the moon herself - I know this to be true because the moon, she brought us to each other slowly and deliberately and over many, many miles and at just the right time and who am I to question the divine timing of the moon?

[emmajeanisnotmylover]

star body.

I loved you before I ever met you and when I met you I knew you instantly. perhaps our particles are from the same star and the moment you spoke words in my direction - my star body memory recognized your star body energy so that we both looked a little closer and saw there something deep and familiar and fated in the Channel of Unavoidable Predestiny running right through both our hearts.

[emmajeanisnotmylover]

birthright.

I am made of Alabama red clay and thick cicada nights I am made of the sweat beading on your brow and the steady pulsing of contra dance floors of heavy thunderstorms rolling through the hills and lush underbrush and towering trees of the Deep South.

I am made of Montana big sky and thick-coated treks through settled snow of cross country bike rides and air so crisp it might pierce your lungs lake water colder than you ever dreamed and an unbroken nature like you've never seen.

But more than that I am made of ancient stardust - the untamed and tangled deep wildness of the unfathomable forests of Appalachia. seventeen years I spent exchanging molecules with the rhododendrons, magnolia and dogwood, ferns and mosses of western North Carolina. crickets and marigolds and scuppernongs paint my heart; honeysuckle and virginia creeper wrap my spine; mountain brooks and old time music and tree frogs tap out the rhythm of the blood running through my veins. and when I walk the streets of Asheville, North Carolina the fae there know me & they call my name. I am a daughter of the Appalachian mountains. and neither you nor him nor my mother can ever take that away from me.

[emmajeanisnotmylover]

on the one.

i am illusory. my whole life i have haunted one place or another learning watching holding my boundaries taking care of myself standing strong always peripheral never integrated the challenge of this lifetime for me is one (independence).

that will never change.

[emmajeanisnotmylover]

up.

i press my feet slowly and carefully into the moss and the soft damp ground i am treading so nimbly like a nymph navigating the steep slope of the land above the shores of lake superior over boulders and under fallen trees weaving in and around among the thimbleberries and royal ferns deep here in the woods of wild upper michigan a few paces ahead of you i pause under low hemlock boughs and turn to face you with a quiet smile on my lips inviting you to step closer into me with only mischief and desire in my cheeks we kiss there in the deep green of the woods hair wet and wild in all directions and i feel our roots shooting into the ground below and touching there intertwining just under the surface i breathe soft and deeply a sigh of earth magicks floating on the cool vapors of our dip in icy bright fresh waters i am grounded i am grateful i am gloriously warm just to be here with you.

[emmajeanisnotmylover]

one minute to go.

I meant to say: when I left you at the airport that morning I was scared I would never see you again. I meant to say: thank you for moving towards me instead. I meant to say: thank you for standing in this lightning bolt with me and holding my hand as we have felt it relished in it both electrified. I meant to say: thank you for bringing yourself to this moment with such deep care and presence and gentle intention. I meant to say: thank you for being willing to question your own bounds and for playing with me here on the edges. I meant to say: gaia herself runs in the veins of the body of this relationship. I meant to say: I see you. honey sweet and fiery scorpio, I meant to say: I could worship you. precious tender water scorpio, I meant to say: I could love you with everything I have.

[emmajeanisnotmylover]

i. the magician.

delusional and drunk on foggy neptune transits you were here for a moment - just one moment, maybe three I could barely look you in the eye the lightning there so present, so blinding, so fiery and earnest and now you’re gone.. so sticky hot and sweet like honey surely you were just a dream but I have barely dared to dream of you.

the very instant I looked up and saw you the very moment words moved from one of us to the other I knew then already that this was actually something I knew then already that this could be everything.

just three nights gaia granted us a tiny window a glimpse a vision a vignette.

and just like a perfect dream I never dared to dream, already you are fading away far too good to be actually true far too good to be actually real far too good for me to acually keep.

[emmajeanisnotmylover]

0. the fool

it’s meant to be the year of the fool but am i fool enough to do exactly this? to plunge headfirst into the deep end of this deeply glittering pool with all manner of skeletons and unknown ugly demons lurking behind corners and just under the surface?

the cards have said it is so but i consider how little space there is for me here i enter this home that’s held so many loves before me and fold myself patiently into your couch i am never asked really how i’m doing and immediately become a container for each and every thought and story that passes through your head and out of your lips without a single filter.

there are already 5 lifetimes here, and 2 families.

i want to be known and yes you have capacity i see it in all you have done with your life but do you have capacity to know me?

i am 3 lifetimes and 5 oceans deep. and i want my love to see and know it all.

and yes you are alive - so deeply alive in all the ways i dream the love that’s made for me will be  - but can you be alive with me?

on the very first day of this bright new year i awoke in a pool of newfound lifeblood, an utter fountain of forbidden hopes and dreams - all in your name, swirling above my head and curling tendrils through my fixed water heart and i received the news:  open to what you have never known be willing to make mistakes and keep your heart open - with dandelion and monarch butterfly and your absolute fixed air scent written all up and fucking down and backwards - all over it.

and yes i desire to trust the wisdom of the fool but there is scarcely room for all that i am in your embrace and no - i may not be fool enough to do exactly this.

[emmajeanisnotmylover]

deep waters.

have you ever danced with a scorpio, my dear? I see it in your eyes and I can hear it in your voice I feel it in your body, the way it trembles under mine...

before you take another step, you should really know - every word I say: an oath every kiss I give: like breathing every touch: like lightning

I am deep waters dancing under the gentle touch of your winds you play soft and sweet across my surface come  - lay out your limbs in my deep waters.

I long to whip your winds into a frenzy like you’ve never known a whirlwind of careful chemistry, thrown like caution off the cliff.

I set out to unwind your aquarian riddles and run down the grooves of your well worn patterns and paths I see you so clearly laid out in front of me... laid out beneath me... and I am deepened with a hunger I have hardly known before.

have you ever danced with a scorpio, my love? truly you must watch your step, and truly you must watch your touch before you even remember to look up you will find yourself at my mercy plunged deep into depths that do not wish to give you back.

[emmajeanisnotmylover]

age of aquarius.

I’ve been receiving visions of you can you even believe? since long before you touched me with that wild pulsing electricity since long before you asked me for that witching hour kiss...

I’ve been receiving visions of you am I truly mad? sent to me, I see us deep in the forest - a goddess and her dryad. dipping gleefully at bright blue springs playing like pixies darting between the weeds...

I have received visions of you! I can scarce believe it’s true heads thrown back and shining sitting at a hilltop fire, under a blazing flower moon...

years on i have walked certain sacred quiet paths and while many have approached their energy is out of place and out of line awkward in the spaces i call most mine

secret tender spots i hide in the deepest depths of my own heart years on not one i’ve met has been a near match to play the part

and yet

before you ever winked at me so quietly on the couch or touched me with such careful intention before i ever shared my names with you or gave into this smoldering tension

gaia herself sent me visions of you - you by my side - in places i never imagined i would ever bring a single soul.

and while we sit now in separate homes leading fully separate lives swirling in the same magic whirlwind spell of the first week of the new year -

i can’t help but hope - gaia please tell me true - these newfound dreams these visions of you come true.

[emmajeanisnotmylover]

highest desire.

I leave the dance party I am floating from the wine and good dances and dear friends through the perfectly breezy warm april air crickets and katydids buzz all around me fuzzy spring foliage wraps street lamps above me in gorgeous earthly halos I am reminded that some things never change I am reminded this is my highest desire my happiest place if I could write the story of my life it would be this floating through the night after hours of dancing over and over and over again until I am laid softly in the ground.