Here and Heaven

Sometimes people choose relationships to avoid rather than experience intimacy. Sometimes our "fear of failure" prevents us from believing we can have the connection and edification we really want and deserve with another person. We choose partners we don't really admire or feel safe with or who allow us to maintain our habitual emotional distance.

building a shed--building a relationship

Between here and heaven, between the wait and the wedding--between the past relationships we've had and the ones we really want and deserve, a stopping or waiting place along the way

Or as long as we both shall be dead to the world--as long as we continue to make ourselves unavailable to opportunities for real intimacy that the world is constantly presenting to us

We can practice our lines--in this relationship, we can continue repeating the habits and messages that make us feel safe and keep us guarded against the risk of vulnerability and intimacy

Fall, not winter, spring, not summer, cool, not cold And it’s warm, not hot--these relationships are exciting, fun, romantic, but they don't penetrate to the deepest parts of ourselves

With an arrow and bow--tools for hunting, for finding more partners

and some seeds left to sow--the proverbial desire for excitement, newness, and a kind of lonely freedom and power

we are staking our claim On ground so fertile, we forget who we’ve hurt along the way--there are so many people in the city or world who can fill these roles for us that they become interchangeable and forgettable

And reach out for a strange hand to hold--we distract ourselves from acknowledging our patterns by finding someone new to occupy our attention

Someone strong, but not bold enough to tear down the wall--these partners have attractive qualities, so it's easy to justify to ourselves and our friends why we keep choosing them, though none of them ever really get close to us

‘Cause we aren’t lost enough to find--we haven't felt our loneliness acutely or clearly enough to recognize it and change this pattern that perpetuates it

the stars aren’t crossed why align 'em--nothing seems dramatically wrong, so we can justify why we aren't trying something new or trying to change

And why fall hard not soft--so why risk intimacy? why not let it be cute or literary, like a movie?