the muse
A muse is a force, someone or something that stirs a fire within, urging action, creation, a spark that feels undeniably real. But it’s rarely as simple as an idol to admire or a source to draw from. The true muse holds a reciprocal energy—a kind of magnetic pull where you feel equally inspired by them as they seem to be by you. It’s in this shared intensity that the muse transcends mere admiration and reaches into something divine.
Yet, as much as a muse can be a source of joy and wonder, it can just as easily be found in the depths of yearning, loss, or even despair. Often, the muse lies in the unattainable, the things or people we want but cannot have, who drive us toward a feverish pursuit to understand, to possess.
A muse takes many forms: a person, a fleeting moment, a vivid memory, an inanimate object. It’s the stranger who glances your way for two brief seconds but stays in your mind for years afterwards.—a hint of despair in their eyes, a lick of their lips, a curl of contempt in their smile. Or it’s in heartbreak, in the familiar weight of loss that becomes an unshakeable companion.
The physical world is rife with muses as well. The vivacious curves of a building’s architecture can carry the same sensual allure as the curves of a woman. The selfless giving of a leaf, providing for us without expecting anything in return, can echo in the unconditional kindness of our mother’s gaze.
Being lost can be a muse, too—a feeling of hopelessness, or, conversely, an intentional disorientation where you surrender to the unknown. In the embrace of that lack of control, a muse asks you to let go, to let yourself be taken by it. It doesn’t just ask for your attention; it asks for your full surrender.
A muse will break you, uplift you, pull you into its orbit without always making sense. Sometimes it asks nothing of you other than to feel—angry, joyful, inspired, destroyed. Its simplicity is too complex for human understanding. Often, it will reject you, leaving you with questions about your own worth, only to push you forward in search of the next muse.
There’s an intensity to the way you might hold onto a muse. Sometimes, you approach it with delicate reverence, and other times, with a need to control, even to destroy, reveling in the destruction of what it stands for. A muse can be willing or unwilling, a participant in something larger than both of you.
A muse can be a moment or forever. It can dwell in the deepest corners of despair or rise to the peaks of elation. It doesn’t have to be an entire person; it could be just one trait, something you adore or loathe, that drives you to create.
In all its forms, a muse is an experience. akin to life. one that challenges, enrages, enthralls. It’s never something you possess entirely; it’s something that chooses you, often for reasons beyond understanding.
