Tease me with your tongue

But not in the way you might be thinking…

Don’t get me wrong, I’m more than a little bit fond of having an actual tongue teasing me but, on this occasion, what I’m referring to is a different kind of tongue.

Words. Language. Communication.

Something I’ve realised recently is that talking turns me on.

Not all of the time, obviously, otherwise I’d be walking around with the female equivalent of a stonking hard on.

I mean real talking - deep conversation, vulnerability, openness, honesty… the nitty gritty.

Writing is something I’ve done my whole life in an informal capacity. I’ve written on any piece of anything I can find from post it notes to napkins to the most beautiful notebooks that I didn’t even want to write in because they were so pretty.

Reading is something else that I’ve always loved - getting lost in the most elaborate fantasy worlds and the fictitious illusion of romance.

Yet I still hadn’t made the connection to how much words and language can influence me.

It isn’t necessarily a person’s physical appearance that I feel attracted to - although there’s obviously parts that I very much do enjoy drooling over. It’s who they are and how confident they are in the knowing of that that I find unavoidably attractive.

Ironic really, since I still have absolutely no idea who I am… but self awareness, self confidence (not the egoistic kind) and people who are simply unapologetically themselves are the things that really excite me.

Communication is something that I myself didn’t really fully learn how to do in a healthy way until relatively recently. I didn’t know how to verbalise my emotions - I could barely even write them down. I didn’t let myself cry, didn’t know how to. It’s a skill I’ve had to pro-actively learn over years and years of trying to better myself.

Once I did, though, it’s like living in a house with permanently dirty windows and then suddenly having them cleaned. It gives you a completely new perspective - clarity, awe and a newfound gratitude for all of the things that were previously obscured by this protective layer of grime.

There’s a time and a place for small talk… maybe. That still doesn’t stop the unreasonable urge bubbling up inside of me to ask people that I’m simply walking past up a secluded hill to tell me about their lives and to ask whether they are happy.

I want to know the depths of you. Who you really are. Who you aspire to be. Who you were.

I want you to know that for yourself and stay compassionate to who you truly are beneath the socially acceptable mask.

We build up so many layers and masks and skins to protect us from potential pain and suffering… but what if we are protecting ourselves from love and joy and happiness too? What if those protective layers can’t differentiate between the things we might want to feel and the things we maybe don’t - so they just ‘protect’ us from everything… and stop us feeling anything at all.

I spent too long in that darkened void.

So now I stay purposefully awake to my feelings. I savour words and conversations and poetry and song lyrics. I find connection in quotes written by somebody else that I’ve never even met and yet they have described how I feel more perfectly than I could even explain it for myself.

I realised that flattery will get you everywhere when it comes to me because words are my weakness. But they are also my strength.

Words are more than just letters scrambled together on a page. They have purpose and they create connection if only we learn how to wield them into a gentle caress or a slow, loving kiss - rather than a thousand swords or an impenetrable gorse bush.

Words can be wonderful and that deep, soulful conversation is what truly turns me on.