Inner Beloved

My dearest,

I do so love the name Inner Beloved, I hope that this name is alright with you. I know that you are with me, I feel your pirouettes, I sense the toss of your head and am nourished by the cascade of your hair. Every now and then I catch a glimpse of you unexpectedly, your reflection is mine, but it is me when I am full and certain, when there is a song that bubbles up my throat, that passes through my lips and I allow it to unite with the air as you are united with me.

You have chosen me and have waited since my dawn. There have always been ripplings, you have accompanied me during shy and awkward moments when I didn’t fit in, when I sat alone in noisy cafeterias in new schools, before the new friend made of skin, bone and muscle would appear, you my corporeal love would emerge and hold a brilliant space of yellow, soothing light. Warm companionship that has held me through frightening diagnoses, and inevitable goodbyes of the other.

You are light on your bare feet and graceful in your long, flowing skirts. You are the one that has made it acceptable for me to wear blue jeans more times that not, yet give me the air of wearing the most feminine of frocks. Funny that this is our first written correspondence, how then have we been communicating? How is it that you have cupped and cradled me so completely all of this time with such unpredictable nourishment? You thrive as if you have been fed like Cleopatra, sustained by the choices of wine, pheasant and dates. You are the most dear to me in the time that exists between the cool, slow rush of the wind that shoots inside of me when I inhale and the warm, thoughtful air that trickles out.

Funny, you must inhabit fields of time and space that I am not meant to comprehend at this time because I have caught you out in the world as well. I hope you don’t mind me telling a few of those. You were captured more than once in the folds of Mother Teresa’s face, in Princess Diana’s hesitant smile, Jacqueline O’Nasis’s footfalls, Maya Angelou’s laugh and my grandmother’s repose. I am not jealous Inner Beloved, because you always return once more to me. You have such strong shoulders for they have held all of my fears and the weight of my wants. Finally, thank you, for the tools to allow me to whisk away with you in the interchange of black and the deepest of purple that lie behind my eyes in meditative moments, we have fun together do we not? I will leave now Inner Beloved, for the day, the outer world beckons. I hear doors open and close, muffled voices of my friends and the gnaw of responsibility taking hold. I will look for you today and when others wonder what a quiet, lazy smile is doing on my lips our secret will be revealed.