Poly doesnāt always feel nice, sometimesā¦
Poly is watching your partner get their needs that match yours met with someone else.
Sometimes poly is having to accept less, instead of all.
Sometimes poly is you donāt need my permission to do it anyway.
Sometimes poly is burning. Sitting in your room, your house, alone, burning with all the emotions and there is no one to put you out except yourself. Sometimes, youāre not enough of a firefighter.
Sometimes poly is boring. Sometimes poly is Netflix and chilling, by yourself, your own hand down your pajama pants.
Sometimes poly is rage. Fierce, hot, molten gold down your gullet, choking you, burning you, cooking you to a not-quick enough death.
Sometimes itās pain, bright, white hot, cutting into the very core of you. Splintering you into a thousand, million pieces. Sometimes itās I donāt know how I survive this.
Sometimes poly is acceptance of not so great, because there is no other option.
Sometimes poly is a snide laugh, a kick in the gut, a slap in the face. Sometimes poly is heartbreak.
Sometimes poly is I will never feel āsafeā again.
Sometimes itās overthinking. Overanalyzing. Overdoing. Over scheduling. Overtalking. Over⦠Everything.
Sometimes poly is⦠Canāt I just go back?
Poly is I canāt, I canāt go back. Because going back would mean so much sacrifice, so much giving up of people that I cannot fathom how much I love them. So much beautiful, wonderful, awful exploration of self that I would never get again. I canāt say, I donāt want my lovers and friends and amazing people who blur ALL of my lines and boundaries with their amazing selves. I canāt say, for the sake of some general level of ācomfortā that I know is false, I will give up everyone. Their intimacy, their vulnerability, their nakedness. What they look like laughing, and coming, and crying. Versions of them I donāt get to see within the confines of monogamy as I knew it. I have sacrificed so very much to be here, uncomfortable, today. I canāt.
I feel Iām awake now, with all the discomfort that comes with awakening. But I canāt go back to sleep.
Itās shitty, sometimes, being awake. The sun is too bright, the sounds too harsh. Itās easy when Iām head down, dreaming. But itās not real, you know? Itās an illusion, a construct. It works for some, but Iāve taken the red pill. Iāve seen my life for how it is, my thinking for how it is. I canāt unsee it.
Maybe one day how I outwardly perform myself will change, but for now, I canāt go back. I am what I am, doing what Iām doing the ways that I do it. Sometimes it hurts. Fuck yeah it hurts. Donāt ever believe anyone who tells you anything remotely differently. And you know what? Itās ok.
Through this, we grow. We become something else. We become better, stronger. We know ourselves more. We know more words to use to advocate for ourselves, and that is fucking amazing. Without this pain, without this trial by fire and molten metal, we might not know what weāre capable of. And knowing what weāre capable of is an awesome, incredible thing. That is what makes you, you. That is what inspires you to fucking amazing things.