I don’t think what draws me back is submission itself.
At least I hope it isn’t.
Because when I picture it honestly, there are very few parts I actually enjoy.
The waiting.
The uncertainty.
The feeling that somebody else’s attention has become more important than my own plans.
None of that sounds appealing when I say it out loud.
And yet I keep returning to it.
Not physically.
Mentally.
A hundred times a day.
Usually through details so small they should disappear immediately.
A chair that has been left slightly pulled away from a table.
A door that is not fully closed.
A notification that never arrives.
A pause in a conversation.
Those moments stay.
I don’t know why.
The strange thing is that I am not imagining dramatic scenes.
I am almost never imagining anything dramatic.
What comes back are the empty spaces around them.
The periods of waiting.
The hours where nothing happens.
The feeling of existing somewhere inside another person’s structure.
That should bother me more than it does.
Sometimes it does.
Sometimes I become genuinely irritated by it.
I will be doing something completely unrelated.
Reading.
Working.
Buying groceries.
And suddenly I find myself wondering what it would feel like to simply remain where I was placed and stop negotiating with every thought that enters my head.
Not forever.
Just for a little while.
Long enough to stop carrying myself.
That’s the thought that keeps returning.
Not obedience.
Not pleasure.
Relief.
And I hate how attractive that sounds.
Because I like making my own decisions.
I like being independent.
I like being left alone.
At least that is what I keep telling myself.
Then I remember things that make no sense.
The exact sound of footsteps disappearing down a hallway.
The shape of light underneath a closed door.
The texture of a blanket folded on the corner of a chair.
A glass of water left untouched for hours.
Why do I remember those things?
Why those things?
Why not the important moments?
Why not the conversations?
Why not the instructions?
Instead my mind preserves the waiting.
The atmosphere.
The suspension.
The feeling that something larger than me was happening somewhere nearby and that my only responsibility was to remain present for it.
It is a ridiculous thing to miss.
But I do.
Not constantly.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
Like a splinter beneath the skin.
Sometimes I think the process began because I wanted something.
Control.
Meaning.
Structure.
I don’t think that’s true anymore.
Now I suspect it began because I was tired.
Tired of carrying myself around all the time.
Tired of generating endless opinions.
Tired of monitoring every decision.
Tired of being the person responsible for being me.
I would never admit that to most people.
It sounds weak.
Maybe it is.
But there are moments when I catch myself staring at something insignificant for several minutes.
The corner of a desk.
A crease in a bedsheet.
A mark on a painted wall.
And I realize I am not really looking at it.
I am remembering a feeling.
The feeling of remaining.
Not improving.
Not expressing.
Not becoming.
Just remaining.
I don’t think I like being submissive.
I still believe that.
But there is something about the space around it that keeps finding me.
Something about being allowed to exist without constantly reasserting myself.
Something about waiting.
Something about belonging nowhere except the moment itself.
I keep trying to leave that thought behind.
And somehow it always arrives first.
The neck I am not moving it the neck has locked I should…
