Distant Battles

There is a battle for power going on in the east.  Men in blue and gray.  Seduced by glory and the faint purple dream of gold and long-weaving tales that could twist and pull in even the most modest of girls. 
In the east the men fight, not just each other but the bugs and the cold that reaches in under their worn-out ratty wool blankets. 
Each one stinks and is darkened with grease and drops of blackened blood.  All blankets are futile attempts to stop cold or bleeding.  The rations are paltry; the young men, babyfaced and pale, hold the balled up blankets to their cavernous stomachs to blot out the noises of hunger, they press them tighter to drown out the needling pain. Older recruits warned of the hunger. It would crawl inside and start to eat and gnaw from the inside, hollowing out fingers and toes first, it would soon find the plentiful reserves of thick, purple organs. 
Just outside the camps made of canvas and dirt are the muskets and hastily made trenches, the mis-read maps that will lead to so many fallen lives on coming autumn days.
Out there in the fields and meadows and under the old trees they lay. Sometimes thousands in a week, sometimes hundreds in an hour. Too many to carry home, too many to bury in the soil and say a little prayer. They will have to be found by god, buried in snow and picked at by the animals of shadows. They will end up in the woods and meadows, spread out bit by bit by tiny squirrels and swallows.
Those gunshots are not even a faint ding on the horizon out in the yellow land of the west. This is the wasteland and the battle hymns and marches fall, losing their way between sand and stone.
In the desert and the old dusty towns there are other games to play. Gray and blue are just some of the colors, none are the desert dwellers' concern.  The wasteland is full of games, big and small and meaningless, depending on the player. Each rider and beast moves towards gold or glory or woman or the rare gem of purpose at the bottom of a deep flowing river, the great golden treasure that calls from the heart of an ever receding sea.

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.

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.

Abandoning Desire

I abandon desire and let go of jealousy.

It is my prayer but the ears are closed and the mouth cannot move. My eyes close and I see the sphere of the world mounting over a black horizon. I am naked and the stars begin to fall in mathematical succession, one after the other, falling like beats on the measure. It is precise and I try to grab them with my extra arms but they slip like butter through cracks in the sidewalk, they fall and take the light with them.

I abandon desire and let go of jealousy.

I hear screaming in the distance, a tight space with black bricks and stale smoke that feels like mud as it enters me and smells of old tomatoes. The screams circles me with its sharp shrillness, circling me endlessly like the dark sun that cannot explode, a sun collapsing in on itself, taking every bit of matter with it.

I abandon desire and let go of jealousy.

The chains around my heart cannot let go. The rust is there, the reddish brown crust, the dark spots and hints of green. The links clink and add to the melancholy of the inverted sun. The chains are strung up like Christmas lights in a forgotten memory. Faded yellow and blue, purple that looks like pink. Those thick chains are nailed into old black bricks that have taken on the scent of old tomatoes and cigars. Walls and walls, chain after chain.

I abandon desire and let go of jealousy.

I walk naked through a dark barren landscape, I feel small pebbles beneath my toes and watch the falling stars. My white skin calls to the animals with red bulging eyes. Froth gathers at the corners of my mouth as I imagine my own destruction, a sun cannibalizing the galaxy.

I abandon desire and let go of jealousy.

A soft breeze moves over me as I move up and down on a swing. It is day and I can taste the smell of jasmine on my tongue. Another thought that springs from a time that never existed. Was it a song? A nursery poem? The breeze continues playing its tune over the curving contour of my torso, finding places to hide, finding darkness even on a summer day.

I abandon desire and let go of jealousy.

It is my hope. But I feel the relentless pull. Thick black hands cling to my ankles like serpents from the hell dimension. The wind comes over the horizon, finding me still naked, finding me with pebbles below my toes and hidden stars below my breasts.

I abandon desire and let go of jealousy.

And with the fall, and as I watch, I crumble into the void that opens wet and wide to accept me. It takes in the falling stars, the inverted sun, the pebbles and sticks and the wind that longs for a place to rest.

Lineage of Desire

The family continues. Or it, as an organism, desires to continue. Despite murder, after betrayal and retribution, after an affair stained with indecent thoughts, the family continues. It is a lineage that travels though blood, mingling and marrying, sharing saliva and mucus, eventually forming other, smaller life forms, who in turn, reach out with tentacle-like arms to find those with a slight taste for blood and reflexes that can easily pull a trigger.
The family continues. It is the desire and impulse, not only of two-legged mammals that claim dominion over the earth, but in every creature that fucks and dies. To continue on, to multiply, to produce more. It is programmed so deep we don’t need brains, even single cells divide and divide and divide, creating more of themselves, not all too different from the warm blooded beings we call offspring. And though our babies cry and smile, it is nearly the same movement through generations, each new life engendered by the one preceding it.
In an old story told to me at a young, open age, it was Abraham who was asked by God to take the life of his son. It was a child hard to come by and with a quick slice of the knife the boy would die and the lineage might end, which would be the greatest of tragedies, but Abraham was willing to make the sacrifice.
My parents told me that story, and now they sit it their marble house, waiting as the clock ticks and no grandchildren are born, it is the greatest of tragedies. For when I die, they will die. The little branch will end, snubbed out, finally, after dozens of incarnations.
In my immediate family, the entire younger generation is female. There are six cousins, all female. Two of my cousins have children, all three of them are girls. Growing up, it was assumed I would have children. But as a minuscule deviate, I always imagined they would carry my last name. In my name I felt all the generations before mine and as a tribute, as a way to preserve them, I thought the most important thing to do was continue the family name, to insist that the next generation not assume the names of their fathers.
It seemed so important. I wanted the family to continue, not just in bodies, but in name. In name as a symbol.
It is different now. Entire species of animals go extinct under the hand of an indifferent man that uses the earth’s plants and soil for profit. Races of humans are taken out, babies are killed for preemptive retribution, one name seems to make little difference.
Is it the wish of every being to keep living? A life eternal, maybe not in their first body, but in the smaller bodies that come after them. Can my child take what I have not finished and redeem me? Can they carry on and change what I have failed? Is this the hope of any parent, that their failings will be altered, the dark memories of their lives changed for the better?
I sit on the edge of this bed and look at the white wall, there is no one who will redeem me, my failings will be my own. Each jealous outburst, each painting left undone, they will be mine. Those are the curses of the invisible generations and their echoes will reverberate through time, just as I carry the unfinished goals and dreams of the generations who never saw me, the ones that exist in faded photographs and memories that I can no longer retrieve.

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 Apple

I walk through the garden. Light steps. Walking gently on a narrow path of crushed rocks. Fine as gold dust. One clear objective shines like a blue jewel between my eyes, lightly beaming from my smooth pale forehead. To the left, my eyes wander. To the right I look, searching for that one piece of fruit. That one bright and shinning red apple, aglow and pregnant below the bright eyes of the sun. I hold it in my mind, a perfect image, a treasure waiting for my hands and kisses. Calling out for adoration. Red. Alive as all things are. Red like the rivers of blood moving through thin arms. Red like this throbbing pussy that awaits its sword.

I walk with one objective, one bit of reality taking over my mind. That round and sweet fruit. Red. Nothing stops me. Not a warm breeze smelling of jasmine, not a curious flower with twelve soft pink petals and a perfume that smells of the moon and death.

I walk with an ever-present determination, my eyes scanning the sandy ground constantly, looking past the ground up sparkles, searching for the color of deep life. Breathing. A mouth to be kissed. Each step is a new lifetime, another chance. A glance down another path that leads to the sea. Tendrils escape me. I let them go, flying like a curling explosion of laughter and song. They extend to the clouds, sweeping in armfuls of mist and the hopes of air.

I let them go, my eyes searching the dark secrets of trees. Their caves, their shadows. I look, hoping for contact, a gasp escaping its leaves. Will its gift be mine? Will I bite into pale flesh, dripping with desire and sugar, both of us, wanting to be planted. Consumed and turned into something beyond imagination. We will leap past the stagnant shapes of squares and circle, journeying to a place of layered dimension, places undescribed. We are the same. Red and round, ripe and waiting for knowing hands, rough and dirty, full of rain.

I sense that the sun has shifted, that my brother calls my name from a far off field. I can see the white fluffy sheep beside him, herds of cotton and simple stares. The softness of those blades of green, the electric blue of the sky, burning above him like fire. But this shifting, I sense that the air has turned sour, that my brother calls me with a different voice, sounding more like drums than bells. I search the sky for clues, looking, pulling apart clouds with the precision of a hungry animal, pulling limb by limb, bit by bit and muscles tear and bones crumble beneath the force of my hands. I search, hearing my body move like the clocks I left in an old shop. Left and let the door shut quietly as I walked away into the bright daylight.
I hear it once more. This reality is nothing if not the senses, my beating heart, the thump of its call, the sound of its opening and closing valves. What am I if not a beat? A tone in the drummer’s wail…a sound in the dark countryside. What am I if not a blip on the manuscript sheet, just one tiny note, one life.

I am having the clouds for dinner, they melt on me, my tongue and lips turning them into bright colors and words of nourishment. I suck the marrow out from them, sucking like a dog that claims no owner. I am the master. I am the leash. My choking is the grasp of my own hand pulling me in a thousand directions. I am the fire and the pull of the leash, my own master, the dominator of all that is fur and flesh and love. Undying love whose call covers the hills like a thick blanket. Can you hear me brother? Do the sheep flick their ears with my bright call? My message of love which surpasses human ears. It is us, those of fur, those of the earth and dirt, those of the whispy clouds that move like brushstrokes. The night is clear and I am no god. I am the footprint, stamping the earth with my laugh, walking as though there will never be another. I am the trees, the fruit which I seek. The red that covers us in life and sparkle… there is no other. No ground. Perhaps no brother. No fruit. These are my fears. And am I right? I look into the garden and see nothingness. Where is the sheep? The eye that stares without feeling. The eternal colors of green and white, covering me, denying me pleasure, denying me pain. Where is the needle, the cock that sends its message in rhythm… am neither here nor there, a thousand years have passed and I claim no knowledge. Another turn of the path and I wander past the same footsteps, yearning for my brother and his soft sheep, the call that has turned from bells to questions.

They have all shifted with the search. The dogs have turned to mice. The cats above claim the sun as god. Clear minded once, now I dream about other things.
The play has ended and a pile of red roses are at my feet. I search the dark crows, seeing only halos of lights and a roaring of hands. Who are all these people who stare? Light covers them in a fine sheen, but they are only shapes, circles and lines and rivers of blood. There must be blood, an army of robots could not shine like them. But I wonder.

A single clap rattles my spine and I see the apple. That skin for which I have searched. I have walked on soft grains of sand and compact earth. I have walked for so long, finding only more light. Finding clouds that have turned to night and brothers that have faded into memory. I have left all that have walked before me, left them to die in their tatters and murmurs. I took their thoughts, turning them into me, moving them through every part I move. Throbbing, I feel them all. Each dagger of pain, the thrill of ecstasy.

The endless road moves forever forward, I feel the grains of earth below each toe, calling me by every name. And I know theirs. I know each one. This path is mostly the same, though slightly different. But mostly the same. One different shrub, a flower out of place from the last time I licked its pink. It is endless, beyond words, though I continue to try. I grasp at the edges, looking for more. Finding books and poetry and readings by men in white beards. I stroke each tiny strand, loving the feel on my fingers.

Beyond the rim of my eyes I find the desert left for dead. Without rain, without one orgasm to wake it from sleep. This is the reality of dreams and nightmares. The path from which I have stepped forth, naked, covered in tattoos and a few wrinkles and spots of blood that decorate me like a birthday cake. I am clear, a walking mirage, still searching for the fruit of life. The thing that will spring forth like a pool, the burst of life that will live inside me like an eternal fetus, forever sucking and feeding, forever giving of its dreams. It will not be born, not into the air, not to the trees and the men who would create a god. It will be here, a change without eyes, without language. I will know it, it will be my nature.

I Could Have Been Any Woman

I could have been any woman.

Wrapped in a head scarf, armed with a semi-automatic. I could have been hiding in caves, listening to the vanishing drone of a plane. I could have been a pious woman, mountains of cloth covering my breasts, staring into a bubbling pan of oil and chicken. I could have watched as verbal slurs vanished into the air, forever marking the children they touched.

I might have been anyone.

Driving a convertible down a street of palm trees and purses more expensive than houses. I could have been her- she who detonated explosives in a tent full of young pilgrims. She is in me, the girl with nothing left to loose. The self righteous woman. The zealot. The victim fearing her own family. The opportunist. The lover. The mother. The solider. The guerilla. The addict. The farmer. Them and a thousand others, they are all in me. It would have only taken the right man. It would have just taken a spark and a quick glance and a moment of elation. Not much. A hard cock, an orgasm. The rest of me would follow- blindly, lovingly, would follow to the farthest jungle to the tallest building and their leather swivel chairs.

She could have been me.

I might have been her.

It would have just taken a kiss, a passionate kiss that would have ignited every cell- every bit of longing- it would have just taken a firm cock and a tender stroke of my hip and I would have been gone. Following. Moving like an animal on a leash, learning from what I saw.

Just give me a kiss.

But I met him, and I saw a blue shape moving down a sunny street and I heard his call and I touched my window and looked back, staring backwards as the car moved on. I found him later on the beach, and later his lips, and soon his cock and then I felt his tongue and much later, cementing me to him, the orgasm. Days later I slept with him in a vacant house and soon I watched him ask strangers for change and we bought malt liquor and hid from the police.

It was me.

Then he asked and I gave. There was money. Tears. There was time. I inhaled his cigarettes. Another flash… tongue, an orgasm. I would stay for anything. Just another orgasm. Then I watched him cook his dope and one day I felt it going through me and then I watched as he crumbled. I held on, trying to preserve what I remembered, that one day I touched my window. The flash of blue and his shape, the certain-ness of my hand hitting glass. It was what he was, he was what I became. I could have been anyone, but I chose him. He chose me. I followed his tongue, his body. I followed him, but I could have become anyone.

I could have been any woman.

Tortilla Chips, Beans And Desire

I need to eat. This we both agree on. I listen as he explains the difference between need and desire. The very early morning light finds his face through the blinds. I rarely see him like this and I watch with a smile, letting the morning unfold for me with a golden promise. My stomach aches just slightly and I sip my tea and milk as I latch onto an idea that has nothing to do with need. I do need to eat. My body needs nutrients. These soft muscles long to take the iron and deconstruct the protein and metabolize the sugar. This is a necessity, to keep working in this shape, in this small 5’3 body, I need to keep eating. I finish my teas and drive home, a particular thing on my mind.

But what I desire is specific. I don’t just want “food.” Once I start imagining particular shapes and tastes and textures, it goes from the need aspect of a body requiring fuel…to desire. And this is fixation of the mind, not even something I have created, something the world has created for me, something I latch onto and hold upon a shiny golden pedestal, the thing that will make me happy, the taste to complete the morning.

I desire a particular breakfast. I look out the open blinds of my large window and look at the long eucalyptus leaves swaying. I remember it from last week. A warm side of refried pinto beans, next to it, a modest scoop of plain scrambled eggs, they were just a shade darker than the white paper plate. Forming the perfect triangle was another side, a pile of tortilla chips covered in a spicy red sauce. It was on the verge of being too spicy, but it was just barely bearable and though my tongue stung, I went back for more.
I sat on a narrow cement bench beside the ledge of the pier. The sun warmed me and I could think of nothing better. I turned to the people sitting next to me, a couple that were as unfamiliar as everyone else in the crowded outdoor market. They shared the same dish off an identical paper plate. I watched the man push a red tortilla chip into his mouth. I stared in awe. “It’s worth every penny!” I blurted with a smile. They looked up, taking only a second to realize I was feasting on the same meal. They nodded warmly, equally as amazed with the dish. It was a perfect blend of spice. The hot tortillas chips were balanced out with the mild eggs and creamy beans. That was last Saturday. And this morning, this Saturday morning, I am hungry. I do need to eat. I have food in the fridge. Some eggs, a bag of fake meat in the freezer, a few small pieces of zucchini, I could make myself some breakfast, save ten dollars, not give into the urge I know is only desire. I am hungry. I need to eat. I desire that specific taste. I don’t need it. I just want it.

But I cannot will myself to make some food. I look at my only three pots, and they are dirty. In the sink are my only two plates and a pile of dirty forks. I am repulsed by my own filth. “If I go downtown, I’ll have time to take some photos,” I reason with myself. Bargaining with the devil. It is a lie, a perfect excuse. I need food. I desire the refried beans. I want the spicy chips. I want the same blend of perfect, on-the-edge spice.

And so I leave in a rush of excitement. Somewhat believing my own excuse, but knowing all too well what I really want.

I get on the subway. Three stops after my own, a young man gets in and sits across from me. He sniffs over and over. I think about changing my seat, but I never do. On 24th St., an old, wide Latin man enters. He stands by the front double doors for a few minutes, looking perfectly normal until he starts yelling. At first we react with wide, startled eyes and nervous smiles, but soon, no one pays any attention to him, even his cries for attention go unanswered.

When I arrive at the farmer’s market, I stand in line for the food. There are at least twelve people in front of me and I use the time to take photos, like I promised I would. When the paper plate of food arrives it looks just as it did the week before. I walk to a small cement planter box and sit on the edge. There are people all around me. Most are in groups, sharing plates of food and talking softly. In front of me is the Bay. Two small boys chase the pigeons that lurk for our crumbs. I take a bite. The chips are a bit cold. There isn’t a kick. My face melts. It isn’t the same. I keep eating, but I laugh mildly.
I had desired it so much. He warned me. He had explained it to me just an hour before. I didn’t need this particular plate of food. This is desire laughing in my face. It is not as good as I remembered. Something has changed.

No river is ever the same. No taste will ever be the same as the first time, no experience can ever be replicated, no matter how many times I desire the same meal.

The Penis

They drive through the desert in their open green trucks. He stares into the yellow flat lands. Not a tree in sight, just the cracked earth and small gray bushes that have lost all their leaves in the drought, now they stand like skeletons naked in the sunlight. The hot air whips at his face. He squints, but he is used to it. The pain of dirt and pebbles and flying sand landing on his skin does not bother him anymore. When he was ten, he would cry when a rock scratched his skin as it flew through the air in a sandstorm, but now he just squints and tightens his jaw.
The caravan has thirty cars, each one with ten men. At fifty miles an hour, they send plumes of dry land spiraling behind them. He does not have to look, but he knows that each one of them is hard, that the bulge in their pants protrudes with eager anticipation.
They drive towards their village, the small collection of huts that is now theirs. Soon they will claim it. Each woman will soon know that she belongs to a new man. The village awaits helpless with no men, he knows, for they have slaughtered them all just ten miles away. The bodies lay dead and bloody in the sun. As their cars left the scene in no particular rush, he saw flies landing on their lips and wounds. Soon the vultures will come.
The defeated men had fought to defend their village, the men in the trucks had fought to take it, and they have emerged victorious. He shakes his head, “the fools had no chance,” he thinks.
Now they are going to take it. The women will be opened. Each one, multiple times. Their bulges are eager to take what is theirs. He looks on, expressionless.
“Those women, crouched in their tents are mine. The little girls are mine.”
He feels anger inside. He feels disgust.
“The old women are mine. The little boys are mine. They are my property, mine to use, mine to destroy.”
He wants them to understand this. He will show them. He will take them. He will put himself inside them until they all know that they are his. Each man in the caravan has won his prize. They have fought and seen spilled blood and lost comrades. They have lived for days without food and water and still they have fought, and now their new property awaits, perhaps unsuspecting, perhaps nearly dead with fear.
He will show them that they are his. With each thrust they will know. They will scream his name. And they will remember. It is his right. And tonight, he will do as he pleases.

Hidden Motives

She held her picket sign high into the afternoon breeze. It was as though the wind itself was against them. As though the force of nature had conspired with all those greedy corporations and corrupt white-haired politicians to keep the truth of their message hidden. What had those scheming men who knew no justice done to the wind? How had it, too, been manipulated? She held it up, battling visible forces and those that moved in more subtle ways.
She had made the sign herself. She had gone to the store and bought markers and white cardboard and a thin piece of wood from the hardware store. She rummaged though the drawers in the garage and found some thin nails and hit the little metal spikes into the white board. This was the first time she had made a weather-resistant sign. Others she had made with tape had fallen apart after a few hours and she didn’t want to make the same mistake again, she had been doing it for many years. And so, feeling proud of the effort she had invested in making her sign, she held it a little higher, just a little prouder than the rest of the people that crowded around her with their own signs.
She was on a large grass covered mound, one thousand feet from the governor’s office, the place where bad decision were made. The building where men in suits cut funding for free lunch programs and health care for the poor. This is the place they came to work, dressed like other citizens, with shoes and ties and combed hair. Yet here, they did things that knew no sympathy. Here, they gained power by villainizing single mothers. They rose while the rest of them drowned…and they still looked like other men. So she was here, among thousands of other like-minded individuals, demanding that the shenanigans end.
There had been speakers on the stage for an hour and a half. They were critics of the system, victims, professors…they all used the bullhorn and the crowd clapped enthusiastically throughout their speeches. She watched as a young woman with long brown dreadlocks approached the impromptu stage. She climbed the stairs, walked to the microphone and began to speak, only there was no sound. A couple of people on stage dashed to the speakers and wires and began to fiddle with the cords.
She lowered her sign for a moment and turned around. Smiling, she surveyed the crowd.
“So beautiful,” she thought. “So full of youth and vigor and anger.”
She remembered her first protest, it was at least twenty years ago, she had come with a boyfriend who had been a college student, a few years older than her. She hadn’t been too interested in going to a march through downtown Washington, she would have rather stayed in his dorm room and watched a movie and cuddled and maybe even make-out till her lips hurt and he would be hard and she would have to push him away with an embarrassed smile. But that day he had made it clear what he wanted to do, he was going. She could come or not, either way, he knew where he would be on Saturday. And of course she did go.
She went and was invigorated by the crowd. She saw her boyfriend as never before, chanting in unison with the crowd. Waving his arms in the air. She was swept away by the energy and she chanted too, sending her voice into the crisp morning air. More than anything, she remembered the way he smiled at her as they turned the corner of Lincoln and Harvard. The sun was sending rays of light down through the clouds and he smiled at her while his voice raised in angry unison with thousands of others. He smiled with all the energy he had and she felt him move inside like a beam of light.
In that moment, she felt loved. By him, by the crowd. They made love later that night for the first time, the only time they would ever do so.
More than the culmination of his sticky desire, he filled her that night with the seed of action. Politics would become her obsession. She went to rallies on poverty and forums on social justice. She had done tree-sits and humanitarian missions to Gaza. She had done it all, there were so many problems to solve, so much to do. She only wished she had more hands, more bodies, more time.
She remembered him again, that boyfriend with a scraggly goatee and hazel eyes. He had made her laugh. He had kissed her just right. She had had so many lovers since then, even a husband now, but she remembered her moment of political awakening. In his arms, with his loving eyes on hers. And her voice rose again, in angry unison with thousands of others.

Forgotten Circus

The notebook stretches its imposed lines across my field of my vision. The blue lines of formality, rigidity…they are the lines of frigid women in black dresses that reach up to their necks, the impotent men that squirm at the thought of my oozing love, enough love to cover the world if given enough time and enough fingers. But my cupboards are not filled with plain white paper, the lines of chastity are useful, despite their sexless impulse… I use them for their discipline, for their linear spankings. Order from chaos, I cast out the net into the cosmos and pull back orange starfish and leopards. Instead of hoops, I jump through a singular diamond eye and find a magician waiting for me in a metal cage. I take his top hat and shrink it, placing it on my head with a firm nod to the fashion critics who sit in the bleachers, they applaud in short bursts of excited fury, looking to each other with disbelief in one eye and tears in the other. Their moving hands hide the daggers well, their polite smiles mask the ventriloquist who has already spoken to Vogue. I cannot tell if they have drunk from the same glass as the women of the lines. “Lick it up!” I shout, “there’s more in the back!” The crowd stands to applaud. The bleachers are full and there’s a performance for the new king. The trapeze is set and taught, the elephants are glittering in their jeweled crowns and painted saddles, their riders are bejeweled in head-dresses and their faces are masked in lace and their small chests are bound in tight black bodices that describe their curves as only a true poet could. They balance on tiptoes above the great gray beasts, like fairies that ride the magic waves of night. The king is ready and seated, the jesters have finished with their truths and the jury waits to judge. The magician is full of old secrets and as the people turn towards us, we escape together through the diamond eye of the leopard, back to a room with carpets and strange light bulbs with no strings and a dry heat that smells of vitamins and soft black hair and warm welcoming arms. He holds my hand as we step through prismatic light seeped in yellow and gold, the color of tigers and opened treasure chests. He takes my hand and we step through, my blindfold forgotten on the sandy floor of the cage. My eyes remember this magic chamber of music. We have left a king waiting upon his throne, we have left sad clowns who look in desperation to their barking dogs and critics who look to their companions for ideas. We mean them no harm, but the curtain called and the lens of the crystal ball gathers us like prophecy. We are together and we disrobe, revealing our true forms, the shapeless crystals that shine more brightly than the night.

Intentions

The Rabbi looks down upon his followers and says:
“You must build a wall. With this wall that you build, you will separate your altruistic intentions from your selfish intentions, your selfless transcendent center that yearns for God will thus be separated from your ego based desires that only yearn for pleasure and fame and power and sex. By building this wall, you will begin on the path.”
I look around myself, at the wide desert that surrounds my little city of dreams, and I can plainly see that the construction of such a wall is impossible, such as it has been described. For the desert hides its depths, and in its depths there are caves through which the masked inhabitants travel, and there are deep secret rivers full of forgotten beasts, and there are great mythic birds that fly overhead in translucent silence, and there is a heavy burning rain that comes down from the skies every so often, and carries with it news from other lands, and there is an ever evolving sickness that travels through the open mouths of all of those that talk, and finds its way into all those that listen, and there are sounds that no wall can stop, screams from distant places and distant times, anguished screams that still yearn to be heard.
Far from the city, the ancient walled city within which the Rabbi speaks, there are people being killed, people being tortured, people being banished, people being thrown away like yesterday’s garbage, pushed away to find their misbegotten lives among the refuse of a thousand bloody wars. Can it then be said that the city is safe from this, as long as the pain and the screams and the tears and deep lakes of blood don’t touch the city walls? Does the Rabbi not know that the quest begins here, from the heart of the city, but it extends far beyond its gates? If the men that kill and torture come from the streets of this protected city, is the city then safe from their guilt? Are the city’s own intentions not corporealized in the sound wrenching missiles that tear through hot air and mud wall and fleshy membranes? Maybe the Rabbi does not know of this. Maybe he is simply quiet and blind, aloof from the madness around him, centered on the true God above. But if he is, then can he not be blamed for his own blindness? Is it not a self imposed exile that ultimately betrays his own stated intentions?
Why has he chosen to remain quiet in the face of so many atrocities? Why has he chosen to remain ignorant of the pain that travels in bits of dust through storms of pebbles and sand? Are these the altruistic intentions that remain hidden within the city walls? Or are these the other intentions, the ones that have managed to walk past the checkpoints, past the interrogations, past the security police, past the careful eye of the guards, and they have penetrated deep into the heart of the city, ready to unleash chaos with a single flicker of a switch?
I am that I am. I am One. There is no Other. I am the Rabbi. I am the soldier. I am the killer. I am the bomb. I am the baby blown to little red bits.
How can we then build this wall around our inner city, when we can’t truly distinguish the good from the bad, the true from the false, the right from the wrong, the image from the real?
Within each step of my strange robot, the fleshy machine that I currently ride into extinction, lie a million electrical accidents, free in their randomness, wild in their flight. They flash like little lost torch lights in the middle of the desert night. Some of them, in their wild run through my body that is a world, may in fact look up to heaven. Most of them still stare into the bloody heart of the Void, and, as they stare, they yearn for power, they cry for revenge. They are all enmeshed, like spider webs around other spider webs, like the pages that you may read on a network of light, pages like this one, that make no sense in themselves and don’t even have the intention of clear communication. They swirl and they crash, they come to bursting bubbles of orgasmic supernovas and then sink into themselves to become eternal black holes.
Above all, they don't reveal themselves easily. They may look friendly and hide a bomb beneath their coat. They may look righteous but pull out a boy’s fingernails when the lights are down, and the walls are thick.
As above, so below.
As below, so above.
And if they hide from me, these strange wild intentions that roam within the electrical network that makes my fingers move across this keyboard, they will certainly hide in the endless desert of deeply entrenched resentment and hatred. And if they manage to get past a hundred checkpoints, and a thousand vigilant eyes, they will surely get past mine, my single pair of eyes which fall asleep recurrently and only come to a clear place of attention but a few times per day.
To start by building this wall, then, is a path to certain disaster. Or maybe just a path to blindness. The blindness that is willful, the blindness of the eye that can see but can’t rise above the very wall which its own hands have built.
We start from where we are. As evil as our intentions may currently be, they are the only ones we have.