Transparency

I often wish I had a gift for flowing words and easy prose. Maybe that is a foolish thing for a slave to wish for, it really would not be as useful as cooking or even dance I suppose. Still, it would be nice to find that thoughts marshaled themselves into neat and clear sentences and that ink over rence could cleanse as effectively as soap and hot water over flesh.

Maybe this is why I was always so resistant to writing down my thoughts. I seem to have two speeds at which I function, the utterly calm and still facade that allows nothing within to permeate the reality around me or the roiling tumult of emotion so hot and furious it could scald my soul. Trouble with those speeds? Neither is effective or pleasant since the cold always thaws to fire then bottles back to frozen pain for a while again. How can it serve me, or anyone, to be caught in so cynical and useless a cycle?

What I ache for is transparency. You know, the sort of absolute vulnerable truth that a slave is supposed to be helpless to avoid and yet which I know so well no one really wants to see. It is not that I think those around me enjoy facades, in fact I am certain at least three would never tolerate it if they suspected. It is more the paradox of how can a slave be both truly open and transparent if what she feels is not pleasing? In such cases, what wins out....truth or pleasing?

Do motivations count? If I smile and writhe, seduce and tantalize all the while my heart is guarded and thoughts carefully shielded, is it so very wrong if my motivation is to let my own needs and feelings take second place to making those I serve happy? These thoughts weigh on me more and more as I observe the increasing chain. Observations, they lead to comparisons. Rightly or wrongly they do.

Am I as eager, as cheerful, as wanton, as intelligent, as...well, you get the point. My thoughts turn to questioning whether they, too, have a secret life that does not reflect on the surface. Do they too have pieces they seek to keep concealed lest they alter, perhaps irrevocably, the way they are seen as slaves and women? Things that are not evil or broken or even wrong, just not perhaps what would please the men they serve?

I do not often think of myself as insecure or timid, and those words really do not fit me. More closely I think introspective and self examining might be better, and those are also very unlikely to cross the mind of those I serve. I am finding the increasing depth of distance and bodies difficult, but I am rather determined to suss out why, even if it never brings enlightenment to anyone but myself.

I seek transparency but transparency with clarity and no, those are not the same. Right now I feel like a canvas upon which an artist has spilled a myriad of colors, swirls and streaks and fluid blends. Perhaps someday the colors and forms will coalesce into a portrait. I am hopeful.