Male Gaze continued...

I still have no patience for the male gaze that scans me like meat, stabbing me with its barbs to cling possessively.  The one that falls slick on the skin and slides down like oil.  The one that seeks to label and define, confining me to a thin outline of myself instead of  drawing me out of my pores, so I rise to meet it, expanding, connecting.  But still I yearn for the gaze that sends shivers, tingles and a quickened heartbeat racing through my body.  The one that sweetly caresses, the one shaped like a question mark.  Curious, exploring eyes, the spark, the centrifugal force puling me in deeper.  The one that when I meet it and our eyes lock, fire shoots through my veins creating a flaming bridge I ache to walk across.  

And then there is your gaze.  The one that sugar coats my skin until it glows, that breathes air into me until I am plump and filled with affection.  Your fingers gingerly touch each vertebra, the curve of my nose, the roundness of my hips.  Notices the way I sleep, the rhythm of my breath, feeling when I am awake by even the slightest change in cadence.  When your hand rests gently on my chest, we meld into one.  Stories spiral through time, jumping continents, blending languages, crossing genders.  I yearn for you when you are gone, but I am more complete for having shared space with you even when you are.  Like a residue still present, sinking deep into my muscles.  Like the grooves on a record singing tunes to relive a past moment and hearing new notes you missed the first time around.  You are somehow lighter than air but root me deeply to the earth.  Is your gaze male or female?  Lover or friend?  Does it even matter anymore?

Now I know I have completed the circle.  Jumped through all the hoops and won.  

You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore. - César Chávez

You are the shimmering space between.  I take a deep breath and dive through the glistening mist, dissolve, evaporate into the air around me.  Now it is my gaze that I turn seeking upon the world and it burns brighter than any around me.  I dare you to meet it.  Beckon you with open heart and a quirky smile on my lips.  But if you dance with me in the light of the stars gaze, know its heat will incinerate all we once thought divided us, turn us all to the ashes we will one day become.

We are all star-stuff. - Carl Sagan

But if we are true, it will burn pure and just might refine us to gold. 


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