Sprawled out in the sunlight of his love, a girl can forget the demands of the world outside our tumbled sheets.
It’s never easy, managing long-term love. Even our marriage, which presents as heteronormative and is not, falls prey to the pressures of western convention. His struggles with depression and imposter syndrome complicate the already dangerous path Covid reined down on the artistic community. His passions as a photographer dried up in March, when we went into lockdown. Our family is high risk, and coming through to the other side of Covid is an ongoing challenge. We don’t know if our business will survive this, but there’s no doubts that our love will endure.
“She’s incapable of loving him any other way than how he is, in every version of himself.”
When the darkness of depression washes over him, I can see the weight of the world in his perfect eyes. I can see the fears that creep into his heart, burrowing inadequacies. His precieved failures as a father, or his inability to provide for us as an artist, as though Covid had nothing to do with us closing our doors.
I remind him that we are fortunate to have been able to stay safe for these 9 months. So many have been unable to stay aloft, and it’s his works that gave us this grace period to stay paused in quarantine. I know how lucky we are. Having already experienced homelessness as an adult in my lifetime, I know how easy it is to become so. How quickly a family can lose everything, ground down under the capitalist wheel of progress. We are replaceable cogs- little more than a commodity to be exploited. His art has brought us through safely thus far.
Erasing his fears is an impossible task. Instead, I offer myself up to him like a sacrifice- a holy act of communion to drink from the well of his own inspiration. The relationship between two muses is circular, and we spin dizzy to wash away the darkness by spiking light and orgasm into one another. If art is the god to which we pray, then sex is the altar upon which we worship. So many turn to prayer to see them through hardships, and we are no different. We return to this altar and pray for peace.
