I think it’s time I write about my relationship to Clay

I wouldn’t be anyone without Clay.

She’s guided me to this point in my life. A point that I have come so far to reach, I haven’t come this far just to come this far.

I met her long ago.

I remembered her from my childhood. She was with me then on the hottest days in the El Paso desert. A tot, sitting in a dirt hole dug in the ground by his mother, filled with warm water from a hot green garden hose. I reached down and lifted her to see what I had in my little hand. Squeezed through my tiny fingers, she squished out and took me by the hand.

I remember that.

Then we met again. I had grown some but was still a tiny kid.

They walked our class from our elementary school on campus to the high school art room. I’d never seen such a bright space, wood floors once painted white now distressed, smooth wood polished by the soles of girls’ shoes.

We sat on high metal stools. Miss Patty emerges with a block of porcelain, the color of a cloud. I had no idea clay was also white. I pinched a small bowl for my mom’s ice cream. I doubt she tried to eat anything from it.

A lifetime passed.

We reunited again. I was now a man. I was not just a man, but a man shocked and dumbstruck from years of turmoil. I need to squeeze her through my fingers again. Again she soothed me, but more this time, she gave so much more, my smoldering quenched I breathed in. I breathed in again, and I knew we would be inseparable.

I’d never leave her again, trusting she’d never leave me, I’ve gladly given myself completely.

Through my recoveries, through my heart breaks and heart beatings, through life, she’s still here. The only one that’s never gone, she’s made me myself.

Now I know everything about her, but she keeps showing me more. My title is her master, but only I know she has mastered me.