Jill Malone

We’re getting a little loose with this word, partner.   Applying it when we mean something entirely different.  And where would we see partnerships modeled?  Not my parents.  Not ever.  They had domains. Provinces.  And when I learned about monarchies, I always thought of my parents’ marriage.  The realm of the queen.  The chopping block. The marriage of alliance.

For myself, I envision parity.  I don’t want a wife.  Not the wife I’ve had modeled for me.  I don’t want someone to cook and clean for me.  To tend to me as though I were a child.  To iron my clothes, and raise the children.  I’ve been that wife, and it was lonely and boring.  I want equality.

We have to challenge one another.  To be resilient.  To work and play and build.  I will meet you in the middle.  In the spotlight.

At some point, she thinks, we will tire of stories.  Of metaphors.  Of the stand-in.  When is the thing ever just the thing?  My heart an organ. Relentless as small children.  A boomerang.  Gliding, almost effortlessly, from my hand, sent out to scour for a trace of you.  A footprint, a broken twig, the tiniest piece of thread. Four days.  I have waited four days. The way armies wait for supplies and reinforcements.  Watchful.  I am watchful.  Where is the dove with the olive branch? Land.

How do you wear it?  Like armor.  Or a headdress.  How does it drape?

You need it.  Your ambition.  You need it.  Even chimps are using cleavers.  And the story you’ll tell me later, when we sip our drinks, and watch the girls prowl the dance floor, the story you’ll tell me will be built around your outfit.  The shoes you wear to accent your furious desire for excellence.  To see a bit more of the world.  To unleash a fuller, more satisfying version of yourself.

Tell me about how you distrust it.  How you fear it.  Tell me again how you bury it under layers.

We are our desires, my friend.  We hold these fires inside us to warm the world.