The World

The world is not infinite.  And that is what I have been saying, but you never listen.  
The clouds stomp their feet in prayer and I hold my hands up to them so I can taste those sweet drops of milk.  It was like the poem I once read, “her milk created the stars.” The drawing it once inspired.  A pink and white breast against a sky of black, a waterfall of white and a sprinkling of twinkling lights. Open up your arms so you may taste the sweet drops of life. 
The clouds are there, ready to give and yet we long for the sun, to feel the warmth and hide from the gray rain clouds.  We resort to what feels good rather than what is helpful, what will keep these plants alive, what will finally help me to push open the door.  We need the rain they shout!  Those little tender sprouts looking up, drying to ash under the blanket of blue. Heat drying the land, turning my skin into parchment. But it feels good doesn’t it?
I let that skin go as I crawl over the rocks, I turn red and then black, as devilish as they fear, as conniving as the books and old tales warned. I have a tail and it will sting.  It will cover you with bruises and I hope that we do meet, for I need exercise. I crawl, as evil as the men saw, turning from red and blue into clear water, covering the land that refuses to let me go. I will not die. 
The world is not infinite, and yet the numbers do not lie.  There are a billion micro spaces and I have known almost all. Each story is another chapter, each life another variation of the same old tale. The castles and the caves, the donkeys and their pet mice.
I have known almost all, and still, I am surprised by their little changes. The red flower instead of the blue.  The upturned smile instead of the light as I remember, catching her eyes in a moment of thought. Let the thoughts flow out, but stay here, not in the tiny worlds of the market and their petty transactions, let it stay here, on this world. 
The micro state of soothing electronic pulses playing a few feet from my head, where the fan whirls continuously, a drone among drones. The plush bed covered in Nordic flannel sheets of red and white, somehow making me feel warm by design, the veined fingers moving fast.
The world. Will I one day know its entirety? How many micro states are there?  How many people could be in this room right now with me? 
Johnny on the desk, Johnny rubbing my feet, Johnny slapping my precious cheek. The tear can fall by the window, on the sheet and quickly vanish, over my arm leaving a trail of salt.  I can see each one and am gladdened by their multitude. 
Too soon, this could end. But this will all be back.  It will come again slightly different than before.  More complex in shape. Unknowable.

*   *   *

It escapes from you.  Or you escape it.  For you hide your eyes and go under the covers like a young girl hiding from a dream. 
She saw those woods, the coming light of day her only reassurance. But soon it turned to night again and she was scared of the dark branches and the thick trunks and the man who walked up ahead telling stories that terrified her flesh and made her think of death and the iron smell of fear. 
Do you hide like that, from the dreams of this world; or does it escape you- running. Does it dance in the corners waiting for a moment of attention, one that almost never comes? How can little girls hopped up on sugar and chocolate cupcakes look into the corners of the room, where the sparking light takes on a multitude of colors, where chairs become vehicles of transportation, not just a resting point for a fat ass.  Who escapes whom?

*   *   *

It is a place that sinks into the ground by the weight, the world on our rounded shoulders. I try to wash it down the drain at night. 
I try and let those hands and the dollar bills and the forced laughter go washing down the sides of my wide hips and pass the obstacle of the clogged drain and down into the pipes, flowing to the ocean of salt and silt and all those other nasty things we have tried to bury and hide.
It goes to a land of layered memories and all we need to do is watch the tide come in and look out for its hands. It is never fully buried.

In the middle of the world lies the dusty valley of wheat, rags, boots, brown skin, red faces and dirty blue trucks. A little graffiti done in a rough style, like the young boys still did not know how to hold the canisters the right way, like they had yet to lose that feeling of fear that the cops would show up at any moment-  we all know the older boys would go down swinging, even longed for those red and blue lights to turn ‘round the corner, to catch them with blackened fingers and bandanas over their mouths. 
And though I imagine you, dust still finds its way into my mouth. The town is covered in it and I choke slightly as the scene passes. 
Everything is yellow and tan- a lone young woman sits on a fallen rock by the only mini-mart for hundreds of flat miles.  She’s wearing a long dress held up by worn spaghetti straps- her shoulders covered in freckles and dust. My tires kick up dingy clouds as I make a wide left turn and pull into the gas station- a bell rings and she turns her head towards me. 
Did I come for the rocks and sausage?  Does she wait for the one truck that will come and take her away?  Or is she a fixture in this town, like a lamppost or a flag sticking out of the eaves from an old house.  Eternity in a body by the side of the road.

*   *   *

Forests, rivers, tears and glimpses of laughter, overheard from a distance.   This is what I see in her eyes.  They are blue, I can tell from here.  Shaded by the light green awning at the gas station- the girl continues to look at me and I at her.
Soon I will go on and she will stay, warmed and browned by the sun. We will trade places for a moment and I will sit on that rock, letting the world pass by on the two-lane highway not five steps from where I sit.
The days pass slow, the afternoon marked by birds overhead, the cars that I count, the colors that add a moment of excitement to the yellow and tan landscape.  The hills behind me whisper to the sun, they match, the colors blending and punctuated only by the sky.
She goes on, taking my car, using the wheels, moving on. The world is shaped like a tilted rectangle if you watch it from above where there is safety.  Here there is none. 
A part of me longs for what I left, she flies like a bird in a windstorm. There is no end.

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.

In Bondage

And yet, in another form it dwells. There are so many rocks on the shore, all from the same massive cliffs. It is gray and hard with some dark caves that hide the whispers. And he stands at the podium, a well dressed man. Lights all around. Reporters and cameras. The talk, the strings of words and punctuation that wrap around and form a concept. The pack of brilliant speech writers who so blindly follow a man. Or they follow the money, or the ideology, or the power. Those sentences, they convince the majority of young boys to pick up a pen, then hold a gun. Then run and follow and sleep and yell and smoke. And maybe they’ll come back. Maybe they won’t. Maybe just a part of them will make it back, just a small part of their brain or body. They are so young, so eager to make their claim on the world. So eager for adventure, so eager to die, to spill over and into the unknown that waits with white and yellow and red explosions. But they are slaves to the machine of bondage and slaves to the force of war and corporate power. They have been convinced. With simple words, simple phrases that reach out to them with purple tentacles that clasp onto the things they know as ideals. Those words attach themselves, they bite with venom and they stay, they linger and they pull the strings. These are the boys that will give their lives. Give their lives for a carefully devised speech, for a carefully devised strategy that requires force and brute strength. What this country wants requires taking. They need guns, steel, ammo. They must be a sacrifice, and there is a willing martyr. An army in fatigues will lay down and die so that American corporations can gain access to new markets. They will die so that America can gain more power. They will die all so that a very few, so very few, can control more. And they are the pawns, the fatigues in bondage. The young eager men who moved without choice, without freedom. They give their breath for a machine that knows no limits, love, reason. They sit and listen and march. They move in tandem with a larger force. Men behind closed doors design their fate. It was never for freedom, never for democracy. Those words are meaningless, meaningless for the men in the suites that sit behind locked doors, men who are always safe. It is others that give their lives for their simulated ideals, others that die for an idea of something, perhaps never really knowing what it is. They are in bondage. Boys who move for the strength of American power. The ones who thought, perhaps ever so faintly, that they were doing something great. But they were the bodies. Simply bodies. Bodies moving for a larger force, a larger cause that knows no human interest. It is the pursuit of power. Always more power. And power, that elusive word that seems to have no real definition. Only the traces of its movement can be seen, like a streaking cloud. Is it tangible? Can it be seen or touched or felt by those who do not have it? America, the great brutalizer. America, the great bully. America, the great weapon maker. They are asked to give their lives, to die for the accumulation of another man’s power. And they say yes, as they have nothing else left to say.

Labyrinth Walk

I stood on the border looking in. There was a great circular labyrinth in front of me and I stood on the edge, where the stone edged path began. Should I go in? I wondered. Is this the time? I wondered. Will there be another opportunity? My mind was clouded with thoughts, tinged with self conscious doubt and human concerns. As I whirled in the pro and cons and brain activity, I felt the moment closing. It was moving past, rushing like a slow current, but definitely moving…drifting through my finger tips as I stood there debating. The moment moved as would the stream past a rock, unafraid to leave me in its wake. I could feel the three women behind me squirming slightly, their bodies preparing for departure, ready to move up the hill and begin our lunch. I felt it all passing. I knew it was leaving, maybe forever.
A small bird chirped in a nearby tree. A soft breeze blew wisps of hair across my forehead. Without a thought, my foot took a step, my first step on the labyrinth. And as my foot took the step, my mind was surprised. It had been left out of the decision. It was being taken for a walk. I thought, "oh, I guess I’m doing this." And my mind was shocked, but willing to go. I looked down at the path directly in front of me, at the narrow bit of dirt outlined in gray stones. I remembered myself. I remembered what to do. My right foot touched lightly upon the path, I felt the earth beneath me, I felt the heel as it made contact with the earth. Each step was slow, each movement deliberate and noticed.
Nearly thirty steps in, my mind started to dart. "Was this a good time for this? Will they be mad? Did I mess up the space? This is probably taking too much time!" And then, a calmer voice, another "I" said, "you’re doing it now, you can’t turn back, you’re in the middle, you made the decision…so do it as best as you can." My hands were swinging, the air drifted through my curled fingers like soft kisses on a journey. My left knee bent as my body prepared for the next step. I turned the corners carefully and slowly, watching the ground as the outlined path turned back on itself. "This just keeps going!" I thought. I put my attention back on my feet. I felt my arcs stretch with the forward movement of heel to toe. The breeze touched me again and tousled my hair.
When I had started, I heard the voices of the three women on the outside. I imagined how they saw me, how I looked from the outside. They kept talking and I felt safe in their neglect. But when I was focusing on my feet, somewhere along the way, their voices had dropped away. The space was silent except for the rustling of nearby leaves and the occasional car tires swishing on the asphalt of the road below. It was me and the labyrinth. Me and the elements. Me and my effort. Perhaps me and their attention.
The rings were getting smaller, I turned corners more often until I reached the center. In the small round center was a mosaic stepping stone that had small stones and beads upon it. I closed my eyes. I saw small sparks of electricity playing on the canvas of my eyelids. I raised my hands out to the sides, opening them wide then raising them above my head and finally bringing both hands together in front of my chest. Oooooommmmmm, the sound was not as pure as it is when I intone it sometimes, alone in my bedroom, but I noticed that fact objectively and I held my attention on the sound and my diaphragm, even as the sound cracked slightly. I pulled my stomach in as my rounded mouth continued with the elongated sound. I stood in the center, feeling the soft breeze, feeling the sun, hearing the sound of birds, feeling quiet, yet electrified and alive. My ego had fallen and I was overcome with a sense of lightness.
My body turned back. I took a step, I raised my leg like a solider, placing it firmly on the ground. I took another step, a very short one on the tips of my toes. I walked back through the rings, sometimes emphasizing the movement of my hips like a supermodel, other times walking erect and with a sense of formality. Other steps, I glided. I alternated between movements, improvising each like a chaotic dance with my attention as the thread of consistency. And the more I played, the more alive I felt. My smile increased the more I played and I shed more of myself upon the soil.
There was nothing else. My past was a distant part of my imagination, the future was never coming. There was only each single step and the thousands of movements which seamlessly created it . The labyrinth and I were playing. We were lovers in union. Dancers intertwined. Actors upon a stage. Beings in a living void.