My muse

I found my muse.. a fact I can't talk about in real life so it's spilling onto my virtual world. A guy so deliciously unsuitable, and yet so poetic. A person I met in the depths of the Chinese winter, and who melted my heart. But by spring who knows if I'll need him anymore as the whole world thaws. That's the tragedy of muses.

He's a migrant worker, the lowest of all classes in this class concious society. But his spirit is unbroken, unlike these pampered, white collar kids who have grown up as emperors in their families. He has a wild streak, and yet no opportunities. He's smart but vulnerable and he remembers every single thing I said. I find the differences between us endlessly fascinating. I want to go with him to his native Henan province, see what it's like to grow up close to nature and the community.

We met at Christmas time, and when I came back to my real life to go to the parties, sip the drinks, and pretend to laugh with the people in my world all I could thinkk about was, "life has got to be more than this." I was just bored, bored, bored without the struggle and the injustice that opened a window into what really mattered, and who I could be.

But I don't have the courage to go forward with this. I'm a coward and a hypocrite and a liar. There's a reason why middle class Chinese people treat these workers like they're not human. There's too many people and too few resources in this country. Wasted lives and wasted potential is just par the course.

There's a danger to treating everyone like a human being. You can be polite and generous to the lowly waitress, or the scruffy builder but it's only at the very basic end of treating someone like a human being. At the other end is falling in love.

I don't want to fall for someone that can't even afford a coffee. Sounds bad but how can it possibly work? And it's worse because I know I'm capable of falling this way, ever since I decided to follow my heart.

It couldn't possibly end well.. and yet I am a moth to a flame.