A Vow to Devotion
A Vow to Myself, My Future Lovers, and Life Itself I. INVOCATION I’ve never hungered for a bond that stands at the threshold, holding a bouquet of easy answers. Bring me the kind that drags its story behind it like a rusted blade, the kind that says, “I’ve been to the pit and back, and I have not come empty-handed.” I long for a union that does not ask me to soften the jagged edges of my past, nor wrap my ghosts in silk so they don’t frighten the guests. I long for the one who will sit with me in the graveyard of my old selves, kneeling beside every version I buried and murdered just to keep breathing, tracing the names I’ve scratched onto headstones in the dark. Bring me the one who looks at the blood under my nails and says, “Show me where it hurt. Show me what you had to kill inside yourself. I do not flinch. I do not run. I will bury it with you, or dig it up if that’s what your soul craves tonight.” Let them keep their clean, bright lovers, all honeyed smiles and pretty lies. Give...