Why?   because I am your teacher because I have both willingly and unconsciously accepted the conditions of my work because I now recognize, with sweet sadness and resigned horror, that this work requires of me a vow of chastity because all I have is the integrity I have cultivated through my work because I catch myself using "discretion" and "privacy" as codewords for furtiveness and subterfuge because I want no love in my life that cannot be open and visible to all the world because my role demands wisdom of me because I am empowered to decide what's right for you, and this is what makes us so unequal, this is why teacher-student relationships inspire such revulsion and outrage, this is why it seems like incest because I feel impelled to protect you from the possible consequences of what you want because you cannot protect me from the possible consequences of what I want because you feel powerless because you are not at peace, with me or with yourself because you do not yet have a healthy, sustainable relationship with yourself because you measure your worth by your attractiveness because you believe that love has been a disaster and a disappointment and a chore for you because you cannot know me well enough to love me because now you need an education more than anything else, including love because you will need to renounce me someday because you need above all to cultivate the power of your spirit because you are my student that's why     © Michael Fleming San Francisco, California October 1996