By Elizabeth Harper

I’m not a real submissive. Just a play submissive. Don’t slap my face or call me stupid without my permission.

To love bodies, even as they’re growing older. To love every freckle, skin tag, wrinkle. To love the extra weight, the thinning hair, the aching joints.

To love the whole person, the thoughts and experiences, the vulnerabilities and expertises.

I’ll give my love to you. You’ll give your love to me. It’s not a mercenary exchange.

I’ll give love unreciprocated, just because it feels good to love, to see, another person.

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Is the world going to shit? It sure feels like it. It’s always felt like it. But somehow now even more. Our knowledge of history is a handicap. Feels awful, as if something awful that came before, inherited misery, is somehow on the menu again, and forced down our throats.

If only there were a daddy I could trust. Who could make it all better. But the daddies worth the salt don’t have the political clout, the power to fix it.

And let’s be real, there was never any daddy, never any superhero, who was ever going to solve all the problems, save the day.

The problems are too complex. There is no single savior. There are only folks doing the best they can.

To survive. To counter pernicious ideas. To decipher truth. To live and breathe free.