Detectives

We search, picking through the clues left behind- piles of letters in the mailbox and a fuzzy videotape that leaves more questions than answers. 
They have combed their mind for answers- praying, hoping for a final answer to the questions that keep them awake night after night.  It has been years now- years, and the nights when they should be sleeping drag out forever as they adjust themselves over and over on their pillows and twist their sheets and get up for another glass of water or a trip to the bathroom.  The nights last forever and the mind races, jumping, searching the corners for clues- something, maybe that one thing they forgot to tell the police.  One tiny little detail that will solve it all. 
Just what happened to them?  They disappeared like shadows. 
We saw them leave in the middle of the night and then their car turned up a few days later in a Wal-Mart parking lot.  Where did they go? 
The night is long and tedious as the questions rise up, over and over. There is no resolution.  The wonderful resolution that might be- the death to the constant struggle against wonder.  If only the night would end and the day would come and with it, god willing, an answer. 
We sit now, around a circular table, we draw out what we know, what we don’t.  We search and the more we talk, the less the lines connect.  A disjointed mandala appears before us on the tiled table and we tend to grasp at the edges, trying to bring it all around. 
Just where did they go in the middle of the night? 
My heart starts to beat, not pounding really, but with a slightly sick feeling as it interacts with my chest.  This body wants answers, how I want to be that lady who sees the rise of the sun at dawn, light bringing with it the death I seek- those eternal questions that the religions of the world attempt to answer. 
All the self help gurus and the multi-billion dollar industry cluttered with sticky-sweet titles like “Being Happy in the Digital Age.’  They want it, we want it- an end to the struggle. 
And then I look at my detective. A sly smile on his face.  How he skips, delights in the unknown. I follow him down the twisting path searching for clues. He walks slow, taking his time, enjoying the night.  The day might never come and he would still walk, soaking in the damp air, tasting it on his tongue, listening to the sounds of a sleeping world. 
My beautiful detective.  He looks into a hole and sees the endless possibilities, seeing not darkness, but a galaxy of stars.  Each one shines from another world, another story ringing behind it. 
We walk in the night, picking up clues and storing them in our pockets for safekeeping. And we walk, taking the turns in the path with as much delight as the little things we find under the misplaced stones in a driveway covered with tiny pebbles. 

In The Moment

She wiggled in bed. At some points she was purely wiggling, her body moving huge blasts of energy in unpredictable bursts from toes to fingertips and then back again. Other times she convulsed, her torso lunging forward with wild power that rivaled thunderstorms and bursts of natural fury. Her arms, legs and torso moved without her consent, buckling on their own, reacting to energy that had reached a peak. Her mouth opened, letting out sounds that broke the boundary between moan, pain and pleasure.
She had reached the mountaintop, a place that had once burst with rainbow colored hand gliders and parachutes. She used to sail down the rocky cliff-side on gusts of earth-scented wings, content to fall once again to the place she had come from. Now, it was the same mountain and the same breeze with its salty smell. It was the same place, but she was not jumping. She stayed at the top, holding hands with the man that had brought her there, holding onto him as the wind tried to push them over the edge and back towards the waiting ground.
And now she held back, holding onto the strings, breathing in spite of the breeze and the cries of energy that desperately wanted to move up and over, falling back to where she had once been when her clothes were on and the bed was still uncrumpled and her mouth unkissed. But she was here now, pulling tighter on the strings as the roar began and the convulsions started.
‘uuuuahhhh’ she let out a sound into his bearded cheek.
He lay still as her body twitched beside his, breathing gently, showing her how to relax.
She took in big gulps of air, holding them, forcing her body to breathe slowly, to do what she could feel was happening beside her.
Another convulsion.
Time passed, ones turned into fives, fives turned the clock until the birds sang outside his barred window and her breathing returned to normal. The hand gliders and parachutes melted back into her bloodstream, sitting eagerly on the edge awaiting another opportunity.
Soon she was getting dressed. Pulling on her jeans, her socks, stuffing her bra into her sweater pocket. It was probably cold out, as it had been when she arrived. She put on her jacket, her scarf and gave him a kiss goodbye.
She started her car on the street beside his house and began the short drive to her house which was just a few blocks away. The streets were empty and she began to think, going back to just a few moments before, back to the bed, back to the warm skin that was not her own, yet was. A part of her leapt away, once again wishing to be there, to be with him, not just kissing, not just touching, it was the mountain, the fall over the edge, the sinking into the abyss. She craved that, though they did not jump.
She spoke, ‘you cannot be in a constant state of orgasm, not like the kind you are wishing for.’
She guided her car down the small ramp beneath the subway platform. She remembered she could be happy. ‘Be here. You can be happy with him in bed, but when you are here, driving, you can be happy too.’
She looked at the road, at the subtle curve ahead. She sunk into the curve, putting her full attention on the shift of the yellow line. She turned the wheel of the car with her whole body, feeling pleasure as the car moved. Feeling the dark night coming through all the car’s windows. She smiled.
She thought about all the things she did, all the places she went, all the times she could just be happy if she just remembered to enjoy it. It was hoping for other things, longing for the bed, for his skin, ultimately for the mountaintop, it was the longing for something else. It was the torturous road she liked to walk.
She drove along the dark road, through the two lanes of parked cars. She could be there, in the car, driving, not wishing for someone else, something else.
Not needing anything to happen differently.
She felt that truth wash over her, she understood the source of her daily pain. Her body vibrated with the kisses from the mountain top while her body relaxed into the night around her and the slow drive towards home.

We Are All Going To Die

I looked at her from 20 feet away. She was crowned with a head of thick dreadlocks, held away from her face by a red ribbon. Most of the matted stalks were dark brown, as were her eyebrows, but the ones framing her olive-skinned face had streaks of platinum blond through them that ran through the locks like lightning bolts through a darkened sky. She looked thick and healthy, wearing baggy jeans and a jacket to protect her from rain that came in intervals.
Now the city park was filled with a bit of tentative sunshine, a few rays finding their way through a mass of fluffy gray clouds above. She smiled easily at the Afghan boy, his face still taught and smooth, just the hint of a beard growing on his chin. A table of packaged flat breads and jars of jalapeno spreads and humus separated them, though there was not much more, he held out his hand, offering a small sample and two rows of neat white teeth. She opened her hand, accepting his gifts.
I was twenty feet away, behind my own covered tables piled high with thick-crusted German bread and pastries. Whoever might have walked past by my booth in these moments was invisible, a ghost lacking any presence. My head was turned, slightly to the left, watching the pretty girl, smiling, wearing a thick red and white raincoat meant for mountain treks and camping. The young man in front of her, talking, both of them sharing easily for just one simple moment. It was soft, gentle, and I watched.
“She’s going to die one day.” The thought came from nowhere, it was simple and stark, so true as to be startling, yet I was not scared, I stood still, watching them both.
That pretty girl, in her later twenties, a head full of thick dreadlocks, a mind full of thoughts and a machine full of personality. I felt the hum of the market, crowded with white-tented booths and fresh oranges and vegetables. So many people, and all of us will die. The girl, the afghan guy….
And as much as they were alive in the moment, talking, breathing, she, tasting the flat bread, me, watching them, us, the entire market of vendors and customers and the people who drove by in their cars on the street just outside the park, we were all going to die one day. The thought hit me. Not just a thought, but a deep anchor that fell and hit the deepest part of me, a fact so true that I stood shocked, unable to turn away.

The Game

They played the game as honorably as they could, as honorably as they could being men. Being men began with long organs that dangled between their legs that caused them to belch with ferocity and cry in the middle of the night while swimming in a small pool of white liquid. They played as they knew how. As men. They were beings that charged forward into the fog, with pistols at their sides and laughter from behind and ferocity that burned deep. They played as they were taught. As little boys they were divided into teams and shown how to tackle and dodge and score. They did as they knew, as they were instructed, as they were shown. They followed the long trail. The pants. The mustaches. The beards. The guns. The ferocity. The analytic. The cold. Other men had come before, and the road was well marked. It was colored in blue and black and brown. Colored with little helmets and little plastic bats and science kits. These were the things of boys. The clear indicators. They went well beyond the name and hair style. It was the rearing. The leaning through imitation. They were boys because they were raised as such. Before the plastic pistols was the suppression of tears. Sensuality hid in the closet, constantly tormented by the ape in the room. Father was watching. There was no room for softness. The moon hid because there was only room for strategy. The rules were written on the blackboard. The locker room smelled of damp clothes and fear and sweat. It was each man for himself. Attack or die. In the whirlwind of manhood, she was lost. Hidden behind the glare of the sun, she sat back watching silently, absolutely hidden. The trees held just the faintest whisper of her presence. The cloudy sky was as soft as her bosom, gentle and pillowy and smelling of wildflowers. But they were blind. All those boys were so utterly blind in their hard helmets and shoulder pads and uniforms, so blind in their hard muscular bodies and sense of importance. She was their ruler, the silent empress present in the air that they sucked, present in the woods surrounding their field, on the grass below their spiked shoes. They were the players in her kingdom, only the blind could never tell which way was up or down. Her markings covered their bodies with moles and hair and sinewy muscles. They were birthed from the folds in her great round body, suckled on her milk. But they might never remember. Theirs was the game for the moment. They were in the game of men. They played their parts to perfection, each move and line delivered flawlessly. Like blind actors on a stage, they were the men. The athletes, the boys successfully reared into manhood, so deeply enmeshed within the game that they could not see the empress on the dew, or the tip of the blackbird’s beak. They could only see the importance of their game, the game of skill and force and ferocity. She held back, silent, cloaking everything with her breath. She was just an inch away, but lost forever in the shadow of their game.

The Release Of Pain

It all comes down to death. The machine wants to die. The machine wants to sleep and die. A warm sleep with no dreams and a soft pillow that might never be felt. In each release there is an explosion and in each explosion there is a death. The tear, the squirt, the shout, the laugh, the cut. The outward explosion is the death, of a moment, a chamber, an energetic movement. And the machine seeks death. To remain breathing, yet dead, that is an ever-present option. To remain asleep while the eyes are open, while the feet move, while the chest rises and falls.
Look for pain. Pain is my hand in the midst of flickering flames. Pain is hearing a baby screaming. Pain is being ignored. Pain comes with a swiftness that demands attention, it demands acknowledgement in one way or another. Pain requires the shifting of attention from one thing to another. Pain requires that I look at it and talk to it and indulge its wishes. My body begs me to look at its shape. My body wants pain to stop. My mind wants pain to continue. My machine desires the explosion. Pain needs to be hidden in the corner or given a bottle or smoked out of existence. Pain needs to be fed, consuming every thought and action and object in its path.
The body itself will only absorb a certain amount of pain, after that threshold consciousness is lost. It is the reason a baby cries itself to sleep, the reason a cold man would grab a bottle of whiskey or put a gun to his head. In one way or another, pain demands remedy. It demands attention, and the body demands an end. A death to the pain. Ends are found many ways. Pain wants an outlet, it seeks an explosion, an orgasm, there needs to be a resolution. Whether for one moment, or for a lifetime of recurring cycles, pain comes and comes and the body seeks over and over again to let it out in gasps, like a volcano releasing steam. Emotional pain can be covered in the mask of physical pain. A cut might relieve a little sadness. Pain can come little by little, mounting slowly until one day the landscape is a concrete path and a long row of trashcans. And as much as pain seeks a release, the body is addicted to the release itself, so over and over again, it finds reason for pain, creating the circumstances so a release can be had. The eternal cycle of death and sleep. Climb and fall, without any hope of ever reaching the top.

Wishing For Death

It all wants to spill forward. The tears have rushed to my eyes in a moment of panic. The tidal wave began in softness between my legs, and now, it has swelled, pushed forward by the long, strong movements of your rhythmic force. Up my spine it has traveled, passing cords and vertebrae, tabs and disks. Up and up, reaching my head, wrapping around the front of my hair. On its descent, it rushes to fill the space of my eyes, it sits, like a suicidal woman on the edge of a building, waiting, flirting, tasting the air, tempting the fall.
The journey, when done right, is a circle…I have much to learn. It traps itself in my head, a prisoner of my stillness, captive in the cave of non-movement. The cause of headaches, the seed of anger and frustration. But remember, the gentle movements in and out, the softness of love caresses me from the inside, the magic carpet of a ride taken together. Can I stay? when thousands of tiny hands scream for me to join them in the lower depths? In the pools and dark red rivers of discontent and frustration…the unused energy left to run its natural descending course. Fields of strawberries left unwatered, cactus beds and posies…all withering, perhaps never existing at all.
In those moments, I choose the ultimate defeat, I make the most selfish of choices. I wallow and dance with the black suitors I carry. Drinking wine and champagne while the rest of us wonder where Lydia has gone? When is she returning? A deep breath in and we send the energy up again, I watch it wrap around my head, drip down my tongue and return once again to the wet hole where it began. Up, and around. Then again, up and around. Like a thousand beams of a thousand currents, alive with electric colors and sparkling past minute matter. Push, push it down, along my tongue, above the torso and it descends, down, down again. Squeeze… back up.
Move it…or it will move you.
Push…or I will be carried away to the farthest reaches, where only sadness sings a warbly song. Where whales dance but find no mates. Inhale and up, exhale and down. It’s energy that wants an end.
We want a death.
We want a resting place.
And this small part, this almost silent life, hidden and quiet, yet all seeing…this is the force that caresses me into staying. It wants something more. Much more than what we are used to. Much more than we think we can handle. Much more than we ever imagined. Greater than any television, religion, society…bigger and more magnificent than I can remember.
Hold still. Feel. Move. Push. Use. Flow.
MOVE.
Up and down, back around. Relax and move.
There is no time for censuring, no time for second guessing and perfection. Do it, and do it well. With love and devotion. With care and attention. Caress each movement like a lover’s cheek, slow and attentive…carefully.
I watch these hands move, the vehicle for something that attempts to flow. The unnamable that wants to speak. Sticks in the river, blockages of thought and kernels of identification. Stones bulge from the icy water currents that trickle over packs of tiny sticks. We push to move.
The mermaids wait in the lagoon, far from the waterfalls and side passages where I often linger. The caves here are usually dark, illuminated only by the glowing whites of your eyes. Gold moves from you…towards me. The chamber you create is awaiting my return. Aglow with candles and soft light, warm as your embrace, I run towards your home, panting and screaming along the deserted streets that radiate beneath the yellow fire of street lamps and squawking crows.

The Impulse to Finish

The human machine, at its most basic level, has as an impulse to finish- to end something; whether it’s a project, a sexual union with an orgasm, or our lives- with death.
Deep inside, beyond rationality, we want to be DONE. It is submerged, hidden among the many folds and crevasses in our subconscious.
It is the uncomfortable present that we wish to push beyond and get rid of.
The machine fears intensity, in sexual encounters, when all the senses are heightened, the machine- alive with energy and emotion, seeks an end.
More than anything else, it needs to release the mounting energy and pressure inside, and so, as a culture not used to sustaining heightened states, we orgasm.
The human machine has evolved to die- to finish this experience. It is the orgasm of the breathing machine. With the last breath, the machine impulse to be DONE has conquered.