body volcanic

alternate title: can you tell i have an aries venus?

i am both reminded and affirmed of the nature of love through volcanoes. as i write this, i just finished “fire of love” — a film where the ad mortem voices of katia and maurice krafft find their way through magma and the PVC of my headphones to tell me “volcanoes must destroy to create”.

lately i’ve been craving destruction. however, there is no change without loss. in my case loss and fear are hands on the same body. a few days ago, i said to my favorite ex, “i think a part of me has always been afraid of my own potential.” they shook their head and laughed with me, our fingers stained with chili oil. i can find a way to adore most things, including my stubbornness. however, my attachment to this story, the one where i acknowledge my fear but don’t face it, felt dry in my mouth.

i came home to a call from my grandma, who wept as she told me her brother had died in his sleep a few hours prior. i cradled her grief in mine in those minutes we talked, and again the following day as we both ate a whole pizza at her dining room table. i traced the seams by her eyes with mine. at once and at last, one of her greatest fears had been realized. the force of how i loved her in that moment burst something in me.

at home later that night, i tried to trace my fault lines. where, along the route of my life, had i become so displaced from my desire? when had i become so afraid?

i have a core value that pleasure is a need. yet when i am afraid, pleasure is often the first thing to go. my history of people-pleasing has not resulted in many people being pleased — notably myself. from one off-conversations to repeated encounters, i’ve developed ‘truths’ i hold about myself from the external. i see the thread of these ‘truths’ in my hands now, and realize that if there was a class on claiming a narrative about my world from my assumptions i would be on the eternal honor roll.

i’m tired of pleasing. i want the story i tell to be that i’m claiming my pleasure. yet, most stories about pleasure i’ve read have always been held together with some narrative about womanhood — another identifier placed onto me that i claimed until i did not. in the vast world of my potential there is a pleasure that takes root in the ash of the destruction of all that buried it. there is a pleasure that blooms beyond it — a pleasure that plays and dreams and fucks in the unidentifiable. tell me a story about the sensuality of your gender as a ginger candy. tell me a story about how kissing me is kissing the sun. tell me a story about release as eruption, about making love with a volcano.

i’m reminded that my curiosity has the charisma to melt my fear over and over again. like the red pulp of the earth and all beneath it, i feel the plates of my heart burning themselves into life. arousal has been my compass — yes, in the erotic sense, but also in the sense that there is always some way to indulge in what is in front of us. these days i’ve been letting all things erotic chew the corners of my world. i am letting all that i once shied away from cascade over me like lava.

a synapse burns and blooms. i’ve realized connecting to the core of your pleasure is not always found by re-tracing your steps. sometimes pleasure is discovered. we can fervently claim all we envision while not only our legs, but the ground beneath us are shaking. i’m moon-ripe with fury & my deviousness & the Next New Thing. yesterday’s god was the keratosis on my knees and tomorrow’s could be the mailman. today’s god is my potential. and i will erupt in the pleasure of my connection to it.

with love for our unravelling,

mira