Maybe it's ok...
Fresh out of a writing workshop led by Chris and a crazy talented group of writers. This hasn't been edited but I loved this prompt and the writing exercise that it came out of.
Maybe it’s really ok to have sex with the blinds up overlooking Market street on a Tuesday night. To kiss him while he’s sick and not worry about getting sick again. To stay out later than you thought you would because it’s impossible to leave the hammock and his gaze. Maybe it’s ok to like being in his gaze to not want to leave to want to stay for a while and see what happens. Maybe it’s ok to let your heart get broken again. Maybe it’s ok to think it might instead get made whole again - why don’t we ever talk about that? He made my heart whole instead of he broke my heart. Â
Maybe your heart is already broken into a million pieces. Pretty shards of green and blue porcelain and maybe it’s impossible to break it, maybe each new break is just a crack, a hairline on an impossibly white plate that you can only eat the ripest strawberries off of. Maybe this is where you are meant to be, in this sunlit room overlooking this busy street on a Saturday morning, eating overnight oats and listening to records scratch and skip and fill the room with a deep melodic jumble of sounds. Maybe you are supposed to sit on this orange shag rug and listen to him tell you about the characters from his past as you try to piece together who this human is – is he safe, is he kind? Does his story make you want more? Maybe it’s ok to say yes, yes, yes.Â
Maybe it’s really ok to leave the plums on the counter, uneaten, ready to rot, and not compost them when they finally get so brown you must do something with them – maybe you are doing it out of spite – the rotten plums and the missing compost and maybe that’s ok because won’t it all be in the ground one day anyway. Won’t we too?
Maybe it’s really ok to skip Christmas one year. To not put up the cursed tree again, to let the decorations stay sleeping in the storage unit you moved them into in January. Maybe it’s ok to go on walks and just appreciate the neighbor's lights and Christmas trees and wreaths, and stop and look into their homes for longer than you should and count the presents waiting to be opened and wonder what’s inside and who are they for and will they eat roast beef for Christmas and will they fight when they wake up in the morning because someone forgot the sugar and how can you have a Christmas morning with no sugar for your coffee.Â
And maybe it’s ok to not want all of that – the marriage and the house and the babies that come with it. And maybe it’s ok to really love your life just as it is – just as he left it just as you rebuilt it here in this place where there is no mildew or dust or mold where mushrooms do not grow out of the carpet where some nights the tv never gets turned on and weeks can go by without a bottle of wine being opened in the living room.Â
And maybe it’s ok to like sleeping alone with the bed all to yourself and room enough for the cat and with your hood up to keep you warm and to fall asleep with the phone in your hand reading your new lover's messages and maybe it’s really ok to fall asleep with a smile on ready for whatever the next day wants to bring you.Â