I’m chained to certain hungers, though some are still without names. Without specificity. I crave a certain texture, a sensation, or place. I can’t pinpoint it, which torments me slightly, but excites me still.

Lately, I’ve been contemplating the concept of being nourished by my life, my current reality. The places I go, the people I see, the things I do, the things I don’t do. Do they nourish me? Do I feel more alive because of them?

When I slow down and evaluate the contents of the life of the body I’ve been dragging towards survival, I don’t see much here that truly animates me. I’ve worked hard and accomplished my ultimate goal of being self-sufficient, independent, and financially stable. I’ve suffered and ran from the pain. I’ve sought pleasure and found myself numb to its technicolor taste.

Now, I’m somewhere in the middle. All emotions, accessible.

Grief, guilt, arousal, embodiment, detachment; more potent than before. I’ve learned not to out-run or try to cherry pick them. 

I let them move through me, like water, like bipolar. You are, and then you aren’t, and then you are again. I was afraid of the mystery, but now I see there is routine in my misery. It’s not so all-consuming anymore. And the days when my body/mind feel free & light, I wonder what it would mean to lead a nourishing life.

How would it feel to have names for all my desires? To not be fearful of my own wanting? How would it feel to not seek to sever my chains to certain hungers, but tighten them?