Made In China

It was night outside the double wide glass doors of the discount store where it smelled faintly of chemicals and leather. Beyond the thick walls housing many items of desire, the moon shone down, bright and brilliant in its glorious fullness.
The taste of mint chocolate ice cream still lingered on the back of her tongue as she wandered the aisles, looking at the assortment of pants and shirts and boots with an apathetic gaze that sometimes crossed over into brief curiosity. She rode the escalator up to the second floor and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirrored pillars that stretched from the ceiling to the white tiled floor. 
Bright maroon lipstick over her lips, her wild mess of hair restrained by a furry white beret. Her oversized green pajama pants were tucked into the wide cuffs of suede boots. There she was, allowing the moon to travel above, for the night of blinking stars to pass unnoticed as she slowly walked through the two floors of metal racks and clear plastic hangers and more discounts than she could have ever wanted.
Every now and then she picked up something and held it for a while in her hands. These things were all cheap, her mind would immediately come up with several reasons to walk over to the registers, put them in a bag and take them home. There were lots of reasons: warmth, comfort, beauty, but the nagging thoughts kept coming in. 
She looked at the label of the sweater tights she had picked up off the back wall by the shoes: made in China.  She had heard a story on the radio seven hours before about the province of China where most of America’s cheap products came from. 
As she drove to the warehouse to drop off her leftover pastries and bread from the farmer’s market, she listened to the stories of young Chinese workers whose hands had became deformed after several years of repetitive movement. They made the clothes, the hangers, the phones, every item that surrounded her. They wore out the workers, till death or deformity set in, then got new younger ones to fill the positions. There were just that many people in China.
Hours later she wandered the store and felt the hands of the workers on every item. Her seven dollar tights were paid for by those distant unknown lives. She took the elevator up to the second floor where the household goods were waiting. She picked up a shoe organizer and looked on the bottom of the label: made in china.  She looked at a cutlery set that advertised itself as hand-crafted: made in china.
As she walked, looking at the brightly colored things, the shoes and jackets, the rugs and feather pillows, her face sunk more and more.  Her feet shuffled along the ground as she began to absorb the meaninglessness of almost every item. The manufactured need, the desire for more and more. 
She could feel it inside, she wanted that rug, those sweater tights. She could hear the voice in her head, she needed them to stay warm, some were even made of bamboo, was there really any harm?  Did her small almost meaningless purchase really make a difference when there were thousands of stores across America like this one? 
She could feel their hands, their eyes, their lost lives. 
She walked through the aisles, killing time until she could leave and drive to the house were her friend sat with sweet smelling long black hair and stories of explored language. She walked, sinking, changing as the story she had heard earlier moved through her. She could feel the pull of the American need, the hope that with this one new thing everything would be better and change, change forever, change until she needed one more thing- until she needed that other thing, until a new desire clung to reality just beyond her grasp.
Just as one orgasm was ending she would pause and think about the next time it might happen.  There was no rest for desire, for the want to fill it-  she could hear the stories of the people in her mind, the deformed hands, the jumpers off the factory roof, the utter desperation to end repetition.
All done so people like her could buy those cheap sweater socks and discounted shoes. It was for her and millions like her. She walked and walked, hurt by what she saw, but unable to leave.

The Change

I sit here, my mind playing, bouncing between two sides of a colored spectrum.  The question lingers, reverberating through every memory as I sift through the contents of three known decades in seconds and wonder about other lifetimes on the fringes of easily lost dreams. 
Did I make the decision to take it in, or did it chose me? I, an open vessel, lights blinking, looking for port.  Did I decide to take it in one day while peeling apples at the kitchen counter, old tiles all stacked full of fruits and old melons rescued from the bin?  Was it a choice? 
The thoughts roll though me as I stare at the moon.  A cool summer breeze full of jasmine and tangible teenage memories of long midnight walks flows past me, igniting the soft skin on my arms. I stare at the moon, awash in its pale calming glow.  The lights around blink as distant worlds do. 
Do choices begin or are they like stones tumbling in the ocean current, bumping off one red-haired mermaid and another until you find yourself in an unfamiliar house in a foggy city, surrounded by people you’ve known for years but seem like newly-acquainted strangers. 
I squint my eyes and look for the trail.  Just how did I get here and what is this?  I think back- when did the choice come?  When the doors opened with a small ding?  When I went down, skirting the equator by just a few hundred miles?
I was looking for something then.  I searched for it in the eyes of every person I saw, looked for it in unfamiliar cities and in the arms of strangers. When did the doors open?  Each choice begets the next and they lap against each other, altering the north wind so that orange butterflies can dance in the hurricane winds of time eternal. 
I think back to the night so long ago.  A night beside a house on the edge of a hill.  On the cemented patio, beside the blue sparkling pool, we looked down at the smog-covered city streets below and sucked on small pieces of tasteless paper. 
Those people with whom I attempted to travel, I thought I would always know them, carry their names and numbers with me as the years changed my skin and hair.  But that, as all things do, changed.  That night we sat in plastic lawn chairs in the summer twilight, watching as city lights turned on and started blinking, talking to us through the altered gray air. 
The house, I would later come to understand, was inspired by the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, but at the time, I just observed the clean angles, the lack of tightness, the open, flowing use of space.  We sucked on little pieces of tasteless paper and as the sky turned darker and the lights started to blink, as other worlds do, the familiar faces and words lost the meaning I once understood as inherent and fixed.
I think back to a day so long ago sitting on the bright grassy lawn of my junior high school, El Roble. We picked small white clover flowers and turned them into garlands.  We sat like children, so utterly content to lay in the field.  The grass, so much more green.  The grass, so much more soft.  The sky, so much more blue.  There was nothing else to do, nowhere to be, no one else to find.  It was utterly perfect, the moment without rush and obligation.  That day, so long ago.
When did I decide to take it in?  Was it a decision or a series of accidents?  Me, or it moving through me?  Paper, door, blinking lights, other worlds.  The open door, blinking lights, eyes I can no longer remember and black shadows.   It can be different.  It takes one tiny piece of paper, a little sugar cube, and worlds dissolve in your cup of water.  Did I decide to change, or did the change find me after one tiny, tasteless piece of paper?

The Arms Of Sleep

It is what she longs for, that big white cat. She just wants to curl up, let the sunlight warm her up, and then drift. Let’s just drift. Forget it all.
I want to forget. Forget the project, the articles, the words to write, the things to create, the music to make, the work to do that seems to rip at every part of me, making me visualize ropes and running and knives and parking lots in far away places where the night is cool and calm and no one talks.
I want to do all that.
She wants to do all that too, that big lazy cat. So let's take the road of sleep, that big fat white bed with its comfy flatness and thick blanket arms. Let’s just go together because it would be so nice.
Only, they won’t let me. They know what will happen to the big fat cat. The masses await. Their perfectly creased uniforms, their lines, drills, repetitive movement and cat calls. The deadening regimen. They know just how to invade, one dream at a time.
One little nap and then all thoughts become one. Soon there will be no dreams, no drawings or songs. One thought, it is just a train away, as my mom would say.
I shower and pack and sit waiting in my silk jammies, just ready to go. I am tired and the night is dark and cold and there are too many collages to make, so many videos that await my hands and attention. The list is so long, stretching not just through and over this lifetime, but into the next and then the one after that.
On a cold night like this, it seems like too much. The bed looks good and the cat, that big cat is purring, waiting for me to join her.
The train is going, straight to dreamland as my mother would say. They are all calling my name, don’t I want to join them? Their hands urge me forward, the memory of the endless drift beneath a world of warm arms, soon I won’t have to think and struggle.
Just get into bed and let the engines start. Soon, we will be among the masses. The starch, the formation, the highly scripted existence laid out like a simple map. It is all there, just outside the window.
Bodies without life. Smiles without purpose. Breath without creation. It is all right outside.
My cat is there, waiting for me to slip into bed. Just for a moment, just one little nap.

The Mute Girl

There were always three favorites in any school election, it had been that way in Zephar High School since the beginning of the institution in 1936. Through the clothing and hair styles had changed with the times, the three teenage archetypes prevailed through each decade.
There was what would become known as the “Brittany,” the one who most fit a Hollywood version of beauty. She was busty, thin, pale, symmetrical and had a boyfriend in various forms since the fifth grade.
There was the “Chad,” the masculine counterpart to the Brittany. He was muscular, athletic and strapping, had a deep voice and fit the magazine version of male.
Then there was another viable frontrunner, a decent looking, if not a little awkward girl or guy who ran not just on popularity and body, but veered more towards principles than the other two, believing, truly, idealistically, perhaps naively, that they could do something unique for the school body.
This year, as in all years, there was a chance for a few select sophomores to join the reigning school senate, made up of Brittanies, Chads, and a few naïve faces. There was one significant detail that made this year’s elections worth noting, for as far as Den could tell, the school yearly ritual was just as lame as the one that washed through the country every few years. But this time, there were not just the usual candidates, but a fourth one as well.
The mute girl was running.
According to the pollsters from the statistics class, the mute girl’s chance of winning was whispered to be extremely low, since no one communicated with her or even knew her name. The sign up in front of the office, alerting the school of her intention, just said, “MUTE GIRL, 2009.” No one sat with her at lunch or walked home with her after school. She stood alone in a school of 2000, not one person taking the time to read her notebook scribbles.

Den sat at his desk in Spanish 4, staring into the back of the mute girl who sat in the front row. He thought back to last year’s student election, John and Ivan were defeated by the prettier Laura. He wondered if muscle would replace breasts this year. Or maybe idealism would trump muscle. What would the mute girl offer?
All the posters and speeches and promises, it seemed a bit pointless to Den. Besides adding a vending machine with soda, what had the student senate ever done?
The school was the same drab institution it had always been. They all still sat in rows of uncomfortable plastic seats, read the same old books that had been in the mandated curriculum for 30 years, there were lots of tests and teachers that seemed to only be waiting for retirement or summer break. Everyone learned what they needed to learn for tests and then quickly forgot it. The students were powerless, and the elections only made a joke out of them. It was the illusion of some sort of democracy, but the school had a clear hierarchical structure and Den wondered why everyone went along with the game.
Den’s enemy were the school administrators, he disliked each one he recognized and he knew there were dozens more in unmarked office buildings in the center of town, others in the state capital, still others in the presidential administration. He disliked them all, hated what they imposed on the students of the country- the same standardized tests, the plastic chairs and hard top desks and school lunches.
The student body was akin to factory farms, a processing plant of breathing, living things that came out dead on the other end. The elections were the same thinly veiled joke as the American democracy, promoting the illusion of power in the hands of the people. All the administrators smiled and went along with the elections, like parents nodding and laughing at their children’s buffoonery, smiling through teeth stained with a thousand cups of coffee, smiling and knowing it was all a sham.
The same type of people were elected year in and year out. It was a title to put on college applications and resumes for the local retail jobs that hired teenagers, but nothing more, at least nothing that Den could see. So why was that girl running? What had made the mute girl decide to run?

What I Wonder

What would the choice be? If lights were coming down, blinking and spinning, twirling with red, blue and white like psychedelic lollipops from beyond the bluest parts of the sky. What would I do?
The grass is swaying in the wind, rustling from side to side in the abnormal breeze. Mailboxes are popping open, the fridge door opens and slams shut every second. Nothing is how I know it. The books fly from the shelves, every loose-leaf bit of paper is airborne. None of this makes sense. When the blender whips through the air of my kitchen and the night sky beyond the window is alive with colors I have yet to discover, what will I do?
Maybe I start to run with all the adrenaline my body can find. Do I step back from the porch into the safety of the doorway, moving slowly into the hallway while my hand latches the flimsy lock? Will I run to save my life, this life that I think of as so valuable and precious. Unique and unlike all other lives. Would you find me under the blankets, breathing as shallow as possible though my chest beats out like hands on a tin drum. What would I do if The Other came to me with flashing lights, red and blue lights and hard gusts of hot air?
I see myself running, jumping over chain link fences and scraping my knees as I fall clumsily to the ground. I can see a tiny scared body hiding in the dark of a closet, my eyes closed and mouth rattling off a small prayer. I feel fear running through me like monstrous rivers, seeping out of every finger and toe.
I see these visions and ask myself, what would I do?
Would I walk towards the ship, my fear held tightly, controlled by a will forged in years of practice.
I walk towards the ship to see what lies just beyond the top of the metal stairs. I walk, hearing an inner voice, ‘Look,’ it says, ‘see what will happen.’ Can I take that step? Will I die? Will I fly? Will I ever look back and see their faces, looking towards me with fear and curiosity.
Or maybe I will take a tiny first step and glance back, seeing all that I have left and sacrificed. Will they hate me? Will they ever know what has happened to me? They will know that I went with a smile, holding hands with the Other, happiness and wonderment radiating out of me like a brilliant sun.
Maybe like now, I will step forward cautiously, taking backward glances, stepping forward, little by little, until the door opens. I walk slowly towards the space lit from inside, but it could shut at any moment. Will I act quickly enough? Will I curse myself afterwards when it closes? Will I walk towards that light, those things that my mind can still not define?
It is the Other, and I reach to try and grasp it, though it slips through the language I have learned. Will I learn new sounds, a simple pentatonic language with clear signals? Without words, will I be able to push my essence through the sounds without concept till they find other ears.
I do not want to run with fear, but my feet seem to carry me away. They are brains with tennis shoes that move on impulse. They run towards small solid corners and little boxes. I see myself running, but I do not want to be that character. The human defending the human. The machine defending the machine. I do not want to play that type of role.
But I have not come far enough. Fear still shoots through me like comets, coming and staining my body before I even realize the atmosphere was breached. Unless I work, I will be the hysterical woman shouting for the world to return to normal. I want the dishes and the clean rugs. I want the plants in their proper pots and the fence in the yard. I am that woman, though I get glimpses of the other one. The woman in dreams that smiles and hops on the back of a bike. The woman that takes the hand of a stranger, calling him by name. I am that woman too, a little of each. A lot of machine, a little bit of amazement that lies hidden under the metal plates and gears.
I need to poke holes in the armor. I need that rustoleum and that pickax. I need to make it crumple. The amazing voyage is here, in my backyard and beaming into my room. It is already here and I need to step towards that brilliant, skin-burning light.
I will leave those kids and pets. I will sacrifice those familial ties and the life of shopping and the mall and beer drinking. It will fall like dead skin and I will walk up the metal platform, holding onto the hand of the Other, watching in amazement as the door shuts and we rise into the dark night. Moving forward and up, towards a new home in the stars.

Executive Decisions

I once considered them monsters. Men without conscience in dark expensive suits and gelled back hair that reeked with the scent of hundred dollar bills and imported cologne. I pictured them as clearly as a dream, surrounded by smoke and ash, rising higher as they trampled over bodies in their shiny leather shoes. They never thought about the blood or the oil, the trash they left or the babies born without arms and organs. Men who lived so far away from the rubble and graves that their gated bubbles allowed in only certain parts of reality. Reality that smelled only of roses, filled only with the sound of cartoon cash registers opening and closing. Cha-ching!

Late at night, surrounded by books and pipes and stories I could hardly bear, I cried. How did those monsters sleep and move and breathe? How could a mirror not crumble with their stare? Were they just hollow shells of flesh, content with their bank accounts and fresh strawberries in winter and champagne at every meal? This was the evil in the world, the web of corporations and their flesh-covered robots that breathed in stocks and exhaled only blood. Money was their god. They sucked on half-dollars and bent over for the penetration of rising stock, orgasming into the bright red passing numbers of the trades. Maiming, bodies…it was just part of the game, those born without fortune.

I studied them in school, corporate criminals. Men who pushed hard towards the bottom line, relentless in their pursuit of power and wealth, one begetting the other in a perfect circle. In round table meetings, they decided to knowingly sell faulty cars and tainted food. They used algorithms to determine which would be cheaper, settling the wrongful death lawsuits or a massive auto recall? They were monsters that hid behind a massive establishment, never finding the harsh eyes of the jury upon them.

I thought of them as inhuman, men who could put money before human life.
I thought of them as monsters, until I became one, until I glimpsed the world through their eyes.

Early Saturday morning I loaded up my truck with baskets of fresh baked artisan bread. It was bread I was proud to sell, being both beautiful and delicious. I was in one of the worse neighborhoods in San Francisco, at the very end of Revere St, where the slumping houses gave way to gray warehouses on the edge of the bay. Here, there was graffiti and piles of refuse and old rotten couches on every other corner. Old Victorians sat crumbling, sagging under the weight of years and poverty; and shriveled, skinny prostitutes wandered the streets, looking for another way to score. It was trash and dog shit that littered the streets, and I drove through there every Saturday morning to load my car with handmade bread.

It was an overcast morning, but the air clung to my skin in humid clumps of moisture and I felt the day growing hotter with each minute. My truck was packed with an umbrella, two tables, and all the bread I could hold. There were loaves covered in sesame seeds, others with poppy, a bin of long plain baguettes. I closed the hatch of the truck and walked to the driver’s door, opening it and taking off my thin sweater before I got in. A sound made me look up and towards the back of the open bed truck. I saw a fluttering and before my mind knew what was happening, I was walking towards the bed of the truck, yelling and waving my hands. A tiny bird flew up and away from the bread basket, beating its wings as it dropped a few of the stolen sesame seeds. It flew back to the withered sapling that stood next to the blue door of the warehouse.

I looked into the basket. There were over ten loaves of bread in there, each one covered in bright white sesame seeds and a golden crust. I looked at them, searching for a sign of the bird; a hole, a place without seeds, I could find nothing. An ethical dilemma had been born, brought into existence by a hungry bird and my own conscience. I had no idea which loaves had been contaminated, if any. I just didn’t know. I knew I would not want any loaf in that basket, but I couldn’t just throw the entire basket away…could I? Should I? There was a chance the bread was fine, but there was a chance it was contaminated. It could make people sick. The possibilities played in my mind. Customers retching, wondering what they had eaten.

I got into the car and drove over the bridge to the market.

When the tables were arranged with a red table cloth and all the baskets, I stood, waiting for a customer. I still didn’t know what to do. The first customer of the day was a loyal regular. He reached out and grabbed one of the seeded breads, though luckily he picked one that was close to the edge of the basket, the least likely place to have been touched by the bird. After he left, I walked around the table and inspected the bread leaves another time. I couldn’t see any sign of the bird, but I grabbed the four loaves in the middle, the most likely ones to have been contaminated and put them behind the table.

These were regular customers, how could I knowingly put them in danger? But what if there was no problem, then I was wasting bread. Which was more important, a few sick people or the sale?

I realized it then. I am not pure. In me lies the flecked specks of every monster. In them must lie the sparks of flowers and soft kisses. In me is that which I despise. Now, I could see the bridge.

The Wheel Of Fortune

I looked into the mirror, there on the street. He was an Asian man. I was an Asian man. With a camera and flannel. I was a man. He looked at a woman in the mirror. He was a woman. I looked into a mirror on the street, and there I was, a man. There was a camera, a flannel, a full cup of curiosity. I was there, a man. A man with breasts, a man with a camera. A mirror revealed. There I was, on the street, with my camera, my curiosity, my heavy cup.

I looked into the mirror, and as I looked, I saw that I could have been her, there, on the other side of the street. There, on the sidewalk, a Latin man with a briefcase. A woman with a tiny white dog peeking from her purse. A flip of the wheel, the crowd chants, a smile of white teeth gleams into the camera. I watch from a blue reclining chair in a far away living room, a chair I have never seen, a chair I bought, a house I sleep in, the phantom in the mirror.

I look into the mirror, and there they are, a thousand reflections. She with her long blond hair, the man with the cigar, a naked child running through a mountainous garbage pile, the little dog with three legs, the man with his camera and a flannel shirt wrapped around his waist. There is the mirror, right on the street. There is the lens and the black eye of curiosity and an open iris hiding behind a wall of glass connected to a finger. There is a mirror, and I stare back with my own black eye. With my own purse and sweater, with my own ceramic cup that steams with fire. They all walk by, holding an ounce of me, a fragment of my reflection. I hear the sound of fortune, the tat-a-tat-tat of the wheel as it spins.

A flip of the hand, a tug of the wrist. The audience chants. The smile, so white and fake frozen. The lights of the studio audience dance: red, green, blue. They move. Lasered strobes of attention jumping from one object to another. Hop, flip, hip. Hope. The man, the dog, the woman and her smile. They could have all been me, and I watch through a lens, through a mirror that allows me to see, even months later, what I was and who I am and what we all could have been with just a slight turn of the hand, a spin of the wheel, and a jump in time.

The Jump

A man showed up at my door. He was tall and a stranger. The kitchen light was bright, the day outside even more blue and full than I expected when looking out my wide bedroom windows. He stood leaning against the door frame, bringing whispers of deep color. There was silence as our eyes traveled together. silence as he stood before me, still and calm. The seconds became twisting curls of life until he spoke. “Do you want to go for a ride with me?”

I looked into his eyes, “YES.”

A man showed up at my door. He sat on my faded blue carpet with those long legs crossed. The walls were a carnie’s cage of baby blue. The air held the wafting scent of sweet bread and a winter’s approach. “Do you want to go on a journey with me?” he said with a smile while a slight chuckle dusted his lips. I held my answer. I walked through the night, passing Christmas lights and moving through gusts of cool wind. I walked with a twin, passed muted Victorian architecture and slumping telephone poles. It would be the last time I would see her shadow.

The night faded and then the sun was up once again. I held a small telephone to my ear, feeling the hardness of its plastic, feeling the machinery of its shape. “Did you think about my question?” he asked.

“YES”

There was silence. I looked into the world of the blue carpet. Long beams of sunlight moved through the tall plate glass windows and caught my arm with a small kiss. “Would you like to know my answer?”

“I already do. I heard it in your voice, the way you said ‘yes.’”

And then the waters opened.
The dark night opened its cloaked arms.
The gusts of wind were no longer tinged with bloody fear.
The lights held more than their fair share of meaning.

A man walked into a crowded train car just as the sun was setting.
And he could have found another seat.
He could have remained silent, upholding the unspoken rule.
But the lens opened. The voice cracked into rainbowed pieces.
The door remained cracked, just enough for a narrow-waisted girl to squeeze through.

And she could not dive. She could barely swim. But she did jump. There was no grace.

She went face first.

Over the cliff.

Head first into what was waiting.

What Do You Do?

The question is…what do you do? I thought about it all night, long after the movie credits played and the characters faded from the set. I watched their forms fade as blackness overtook their shapes. They had picked a path, one of the four dirt paths available on the wide plane of Mississippi; long, wide spaces of opportunity whose future remained unknowable in the distance. The road ended at the horizon and promised nothing...just darkness and haze. Just pick one and start walking. Four choices, four paths, four ways.
So what do you do?
What shall run through me?
There are roads that lead to life, paths to a simpler type of death, paths to sleep.
Where do you want to go?
Can you find the will to keep walking, to keep lifting up one foot after the other when the rain starts pouring and each sound of roaring thunder warns you of the choice?
Through hunger, through self doubt.
Choose a path and walk.
Walk it well.
There are pawn shops along the route and crusty hotels and sweet women who’ll grab your wallet and smile as they hide it in their shirts. If you want to learn, start walking. Choose a path and walk. The lineages come down like raindrops. They are as close as dandelions, and you could grab them, if only you weren’t so blind that you can’t even see the grass.
Four paths.
Four choices.
Can I walk until the locusts come to blind me and the devil comes with shiny white teeth and a smile that doesn’t hide the sweetness of my captured soul?
Can I walk into the storm?
Muddy toes, cold skin, squinting against the wind. It’s me that brings the devil, me that paints the sky with rain, me that tightens the noose.
What can I do to open the door, unbolt the lock and turn on the lamp?
Can I allow it all to run through me?
Moving through each little open pore, each tendril of matter and stone, like electrons run through the filament and light my little room.
Can I just breathe and continue to walk and let it move me, coloring me in its travels?
Can I make enough space, open this little cold heart and sacrifice it all to let it move?
This is a vessel, a fleshy, bloody capsule that needs to be emptied just a little to let some fresh water in. Like tubes of paint waiting for a hand, like windmills waiting for a strong gust.
Let this body be the brush, the hand, the willing embodiment of Real movement.

Binary Tree

The last dash of the “t” is in place, the words are checked for spelling, the sentences for grammar…I wrap it all up with a colorful graphic that exemplifies the text and send it off, through the system of tubes and invisible helping hands that deliver it to curious brown eyes that read it with interest in a dark, warm room. And I take a breath, a plane roars across the sky like a metal dragon and then…silence…the void…there is nothing here. All is blackness and I stand naked and alone, wondering what will come next. A flicker zig zags across my mind sending sparks to retrieve my attention, oh yes, I remember, there is another text to write. There is never an end. There a dozens of notebooks, each full of ideas and within the scope of this lifetime, there could not be enough time to finish them all, and even if I did, there would be more. Each fork in the path, each level of completion leads to another task waiting to be done…a new piece of writing, a new dance. There is never an end, just the cycling of energy from one form to another. The last breath will be the beginning of another branch. A thousand lifetimes will pass and each will lead to the same set of steps, the same writing, the same brown eyes that hold the world in their soft gaze.
The infinite tree, with its infinite forking branches, spiraling off into the colorless sky of a million suns. It is never the end, unless I stop looking, unless I close my eyes and cover my head in a blanket and fall asleep within the deep knot of its trunk. The branches may exist, the endless work may exist, the infinite lifetimes may exist, but what can I do when my eyes are closed? They may spiral around me like sequined circus clowns and spring fairies, but how shall I fly without wings? I may be walking the small, slick branch right now, walking along its curving path into the orange sunset, and yes, I think I am, I feel the fading rays against my skin, but still, my eyes are closed and you promised that we would walk through the doorway together, is it still true? Each branch leads to another segment, another fork in which to choose a path, will it be the left or right? And when I come to the end of this small wooden segment? What then? Left or right? And on other trees, there are three choices, should I take the center path? Should I take the path of crying, the path of fear, or the path of containment? Intellectualizing is simple, the choice is objective and thus, clear. But sitting there, heart pounding, fear licking at the heels, demons whispering in each ear, dragons tugging at the nipples, the steps are difficult to gauge, the distance of their points cloaked in a haze. Visions of a lion strike my face, oh, a wet tongue has found me. The cry of an eagle warns of other, even more difficult choices to come. There will be no end. On my back is a tattooed map, it traces the covered veins below. Go! Go! Go! There is not much time. There is no end, it stretches on and on, two choices at each fork on the road.
Will it be life or sleep?
Work or death?
The path must be walked, decisions must be made, words must be written, melodies must be sung.
There is an infinite amount of choices behind us.
There is an infinite amount of choices ahead.
But the choice is always the same.

No Other Choice

Thickness is not part of the disguise. The joke is not carefully hidden. A pink veil, hardly larger that a handkerchief, attempts to cover it all. I can see parts of its broken frame from every corner of the room, from every angle I try to capture with my hand. Little pieces of metal fall continuously onto the tiled floor, and as the structure breaks, I can hear muted screams and terrible laughing. I am in a yellow room, completely alone, and the structure sits in the center, on a high backed wooden chair. An airborne metallic spear nearly stabs me, disintegrating as it hits the plaster wall to my rear. And continuous, within the mayhem, a continuous stream of foul smelling smoke rises from the center.
I knew it to be an illusion.
The complete package, containing all my perceptions. My inheritance disguised as love, and passed to me with unconscious care.
I felt cold…alien.
I watched everything I ever knew, all that I thought I needed…I watched it crumble, nearly impaling me with each moment of decomposition.
I cried and remembered.
The moments of bliss, so far and few between. My moments of wakefulness, opening to the Real.

For a second, the illusion had vanished. I was awake.
And then, the desires began. The attempts at recreation. All of them, false roads and no teacher.
Sunbathing naked,
Burning man,
Train trips
Sex
Only failed attempts at waking.
Where had it gone?
I spent my years unhappy. Aware of the veil, aware of my human trappings, but unable to stop the desires.
When would my peace come?
When could I rest?
Would it be the artistic job? The wonderful lover? The trip to Africa?
What would it take to feel alive? As I had once felt on a train in Italy.
And so I spent my time in continuous struggle, believing, on the worst days, that everyone else- every person on the planet- understood something I didn’t.

And now, I struggle still.
With a new set of tools, yet unable to control my desires.
I know they are not happy, and there is no peace that can be found within the world of possessions.
And yet, peace is not what we seek, although my body craves its illusion like a drug.
I feel pain
Knowing that a normal life provides no happiness.
Knowing that a life of Work promises no rewards either.
And there is no other choice.
Delusion or struggle
Illusion or Work
But I see mirages on all sides.
Above and below, and I am bound tight.
They beckon me to rest, to lay upon their soft breasts and hide.
The Real darkness cannot be seen pressed between two nipples.
Their naked bodies call to me.
Their promises roll over me like waves of pink sleepiness.
They beg to throw the veil upon my eyes.
But never again could I lay naked on a beach, the hours passing like slow moving clouds.
I exist, in neither world.
I do not exist at all.
Yet I claim to.
I see my attached hands grab at my breasts.
I feel tears gather at the corners of my eyes each dawn
I look to the others, with their shopping bags and lovers.
I too, have tried to escape by these means.
It does not work
Not for me.
Disguised in cleaver, colorful clothes, my smile danced upon the lips of crystal goblets. Extending my tongue, licking the purple wine like a cat lapping milk.
Each droplet forever infecting me with the need of contact.
It is the blood for which I craved.
To dig, deep.
Into the veins with my long, pointed teeth,
My lips, parted and red from another encounter
The goblet has been offered, and I accepted with tongue outstretched. Lips opened by hands of long fingers.
A piano plays, pinkied notes of high esteem dab at drops of blood escaping. As I am only a novice, I let them dribble down my chin.

Early Decisions

The attempt to keep the machine rolling along, creating more unhappy, unconscious, sleepy humans. It is a seemingly innocent
proposition. Beginning this fall, students at Dwight Morrow High School in New Jersey will be asked to pick a major. With this
declaration, they will devote their academic time and elective classes to fulfilling the requirements of the major. School
administrators hope this will give the students a competitive edge in college admissions- because "college admissions officers have said over the years that they favor students with expertise in particular areas since it demonstrates commitment and passion." But this is not true passion, it is the image if it. Asking a 13 year old to decide on a career path, then forcing that student to complete the required classes in order to graduate, is not the mark of passion. It is basically making someone jump through the hoops of public education; something Universities have perfected.Whether or not it will prove useful to students is somewhat irrelevant. Most people are unhappy and unfulfilled in their
chosen career paths anyhow. Picking it earlier probably won’t affect the long term. The more subtle thread of this story is
the larger machine structure. The societal need to funnel people into specific categories and fields. Modern society needs cogs, it needs nurses and teachers and construction workers. There is not enough space for people to be living spontaneously, to be following their true desires or passions.In an unconscious attempt, school boards and government agencies target people at a younger age, putting them onto the black and white path of limited choices. Deeper than this is the real question: For who and what are we working for? Are jobs supposed to fulfill us-should they give us meaning? This is the another great illusion. We have sought meaning everywhere around us- job, family, religion…the main things we identify with…the things we can look at and say, "yes, that is me, that is what I love and believe in." These are not real, they are not who we are. Everything we look to as an identity is a lie, a construct of the machine to try and create a reality that makes sense.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/16/education/16major.html?pagewanted=1