Heat, I mean. Just remember, though—remember this; it only requires a change in temperature to make steam into ice."
The strong hand lifted from my shoulder.
I wheeled about, screamed something stupid, saw ragged, bare arms reaching desperately for me.
And I stumbled backward, toward the window, toward the shadow there, stopped myself.
Dappled sunlight had flooded the room in those few moments, and a crowd of brightly lit faces stared at me from above the ragged, bare arms. A few mouths moved, as if to speak. A few eyes blinked, though as slowly as a toad.
Then the sunlight faded all at once and the faces were gone.
~ * ~
10:12 PM
But, dammit, goddamnit, that's not the way things happen here! It's not at all the way things happen here—sunlight on spectral faces, ragged bare arms reaching. That doesn't happen here—it can't happen here.
It didn't happen here.
It did happen here.
~ * ~
Past Midnight
I want so desperately to believe only in shadows.
~ * ~
1:00 AM
They, the shadows that exist here, have told me such things as this:
There are people who wear stripes with polka dots, but I am not one of them. And there are people who chew their thin soup and let their noses drip in public places—restaurants and barrooms, fields and wicker hammocks, but I am not one of them. And there are people who dream of the prefect lover and have orgasms on hand daily. But Jesus, lovely Jesus of the glowing hole, I am not one of them. And listen, listen--there are people, too, who count themselves unique because of deformation or impediment. But, shit, Dude and Dudess, I am not one of them. And people, as well, everywhere—like flies on a summer window--who whine interminably about the heat and proclaim that it's the humidity, really, and not the heat so much, that makes them fucking uncomfortable. (They should live here and wear my shoes.).
And:
I come and go daily, hourly through my nostrils and make a cozy red home in my scrotum and vagina, which I have several of; no, you may not borrow.
And:
Picnics and ants fill up my pants and oh the joys of joyful summers and mooing sarsaparilla and the dead white white legs that spread the rivers wide, like Moses, oh these hands, these hands, and these large hands!
And:
I yearn only for the yarning, which has gone, which is gone—I yarn to see the breasts, the pubes, the round firm ass and be, thus, moved, moved, moved to move.
And:
He is staring at my moist staff his open pants, his lips and eyes aglitter, and he takes, then, his stiff organ out to give me his food in one bitter mouthful and goes off slowly as a life—and I see, then, the shoes, his shoes, and I smell his smell, and then I smell nothing, and I see no shoes, and his big laugh is in some place that is other.
~ * ~
2:30 AM
I had so much more, dammit, with Phyllis long ago, in Manhattan, during those first few months, and I hardly knew it. I had a nasty and unpredictable and sometimes beautiful reality (or non-reality), with her—with whatever she was, then. When we walked together in the West Village, or made loud and untidy love in the little apartment I'd borrowed from my friend, Art DeGraff (who was also her murderer, which I did not know), or sat down to a meal, I had her unique odor, and her presence, too, her formidable sexuality, her eyes (everywhere), and I had my love for her, which I knew, then, would exist through all time, through any change or transition either of us would endure. But now, in my dim house in the dim woods, I have the suffocating claustrophobia of shadows that do not fade but which speak to me, and speak among themselves, and to themselves, as if they're a rare species of bird mouthing the desperate and short, meaningless sentences and atonal music of the dead, and there's nothing of reality or non-reality in any of it, nothing beautiful or challenging or fascinating (anymore). Only air without warmth, earth without substance.
And no love at all.
~ *
The strong hand lifted from my shoulder.
I wheeled about, screamed something stupid, saw ragged, bare arms reaching desperately for me.
And I stumbled backward, toward the window, toward the shadow there, stopped myself.
Dappled sunlight had flooded the room in those few moments, and a crowd of brightly lit faces stared at me from above the ragged, bare arms. A few mouths moved, as if to speak. A few eyes blinked, though as slowly as a toad.
Then the sunlight faded all at once and the faces were gone.
~ * ~
10:12 PM
But, dammit, goddamnit, that's not the way things happen here! It's not at all the way things happen here—sunlight on spectral faces, ragged bare arms reaching. That doesn't happen here—it can't happen here.
It didn't happen here.
It did happen here.
~ * ~
Past Midnight
I want so desperately to believe only in shadows.
~ * ~
1:00 AM
They, the shadows that exist here, have told me such things as this:
There are people who wear stripes with polka dots, but I am not one of them. And there are people who chew their thin soup and let their noses drip in public places—restaurants and barrooms, fields and wicker hammocks, but I am not one of them. And there are people who dream of the prefect lover and have orgasms on hand daily. But Jesus, lovely Jesus of the glowing hole, I am not one of them. And listen, listen--there are people, too, who count themselves unique because of deformation or impediment. But, shit, Dude and Dudess, I am not one of them. And people, as well, everywhere—like flies on a summer window--who whine interminably about the heat and proclaim that it's the humidity, really, and not the heat so much, that makes them fucking uncomfortable. (They should live here and wear my shoes.).
And:
I come and go daily, hourly through my nostrils and make a cozy red home in my scrotum and vagina, which I have several of; no, you may not borrow.
And:
Picnics and ants fill up my pants and oh the joys of joyful summers and mooing sarsaparilla and the dead white white legs that spread the rivers wide, like Moses, oh these hands, these hands, and these large hands!
And:
I yearn only for the yarning, which has gone, which is gone—I yarn to see the breasts, the pubes, the round firm ass and be, thus, moved, moved, moved to move.
And:
He is staring at my moist staff his open pants, his lips and eyes aglitter, and he takes, then, his stiff organ out to give me his food in one bitter mouthful and goes off slowly as a life—and I see, then, the shoes, his shoes, and I smell his smell, and then I smell nothing, and I see no shoes, and his big laugh is in some place that is other.
~ * ~
2:30 AM
I had so much more, dammit, with Phyllis long ago, in Manhattan, during those first few months, and I hardly knew it. I had a nasty and unpredictable and sometimes beautiful reality (or non-reality), with her—with whatever she was, then. When we walked together in the West Village, or made loud and untidy love in the little apartment I'd borrowed from my friend, Art DeGraff (who was also her murderer, which I did not know), or sat down to a meal, I had her unique odor, and her presence, too, her formidable sexuality, her eyes (everywhere), and I had my love for her, which I knew, then, would exist through all time, through any change or transition either of us would endure. But now, in my dim house in the dim woods, I have the suffocating claustrophobia of shadows that do not fade but which speak to me, and speak among themselves, and to themselves, as if they're a rare species of bird mouthing the desperate and short, meaningless sentences and atonal music of the dead, and there's nothing of reality or non-reality in any of it, nothing beautiful or challenging or fascinating (anymore). Only air without warmth, earth without substance.
And no love at all.
~ *
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