Fashionably Late, As Always

There's some unique phenomenon associated with the transition out of adolescent fable. A ridiculously grueling process complicated by the many manic throes of modernity. Some specific point when you realize that not only are you enough of an individual to be yourself in the face of others' discrimination and rigid standards of conformity, but that you're also anomalous enough to dare to be something other than yourself in the face of your own rigidity.

Helper Blah Cells

Like a prisoner. It's a cell, for certain. Every logical analysis yields concurrent results. There's a shelter. A place where they say the adults run and hide. They call it a home. But now one can't help but wondering if running there is just the same as a child with insecure attachments running to its maternal figure. There is no mother. Only something remotely maternal. It could be a wire mesh doll just as easily as a person.

As a person.

Certain obligations and requirements and do this/that blah/blah bullshit. And that, mein Freunde, is what it all boils down to. Right there at the bottom of the pan, next to the remaining pinch of salt, is Blah vs. Blah. Those are your choices, no exceptions, no debate. Get into groups of 6...wait 4, oh, I mean 6 again....Well....maybe 5 will just have to do....And discuss it for yourselves. And decide amongst yourselves which Blah you prefer. Which one you personally prefer, that is. But understand that your Blah will not be the one chosen.

Understand, that like a prisoner, you have rights, too. You can choose the company you keep (for the most part), the layout of your cell (to an extent), and how distraught you will allow yourself to become because of circumstances. This is another group activity. How many members are left now?

And that's not even the important issue.

We Pray for God to Stand

"The latest story of my life is that the devil's at my door tonight."

And it's times like this we pray. When our lips forget how to give forgiveness--or how to say please. And every prayer starts off the same way:

"I know we haven't talked in a while..."

And we make our cases, we make our demands, we damn, and we curse. We remember what it was like to be eighteen. Sing the songs; don't forget. But we're growing older, hoping we're growing up.

And people tell me God is not great--that he's not even good. Mots doubts, and then, without even touching the wounds, proclaims, "My Lord and my God!" We beg for signs, but we don't want the answers. Never cared for a response. We have faith in nothing.

We pray for God to stand. To come down off that cross; to stand up in the garden and take this cup like a man. The cup he just offered to his disciples as his own blood--the very same one he asks to be taken from him as he falls face first to the ground, weeping great drops of blood.

How does a man three times predict his own death and then three times ask to be spared? Why is Peter allowed to deny three times and then three times reaffirm and lead the flock? Meanwhile, Judas hangs, swaying in silence until he plummets to the ground, his insides bursting open and flowing over the soil. The field of blood is bought for thirty pieces of filthy silver. (And just where are those silver pieces today?)

How does one man fix all the world's problems in a weekend when I can barely get the lawn mowed?

If we are the body of Christ, must we all be just as broken? Which of us are the holes in wrists and feet? Who among us the chasm in his side? Can we be blood and water both? Can we be Beloved?

"I know you think that I'm someone you can trust, but I'm scared I'll get scared and I swear I'll try to nail you back up. I know you're coming for the people like me, but we all got wood and nails."

Minesweeper

With a record number of false starts and losses. Lack of mobility; fell face down. Hit the floor. Turning now to solitaire. With a record number of cigarette tips and shots and breaths and incense burns I couldn't seem to find a way to force down. Just until my head starts caving in, and I want to quit. This is the closest you'll ever see me talking with the priest again. They couldn't get me to go even this lovely morning. The sun peeked through at 6:38 today. In through the screen, the blinds pulled half open, half ass repaired. Still a little hurt. And some things forgotten. An "I owe you" to father. Wonder if it will ever materialize. If he'll ever get that wicker swing. If he'll ever figure out what it is inside that's been eating him alive. If the vacations to the doctors with their random postulations will ever pay dividends. Before the bones decay, and the mind not far behind. I want to turn myself to sand. Build castles on the shoreline. Somewhere to retreat and hide away. Somewhere forever home. Island refuge. Peaceful slumber. My home.

Until the crashing of the wave.

Confessions

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I'm sorry. Am I boring you? You seem suddenly disinterested. Just nod if you're awake and listening. Nod if you care for me to continue....Oh, that's right. I forget myself. I'll go on.
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Most people have never experienced a desert first hand. I've had both the pleasure and misfortune of finding myself in either kind. In one, through blazing hot sand, threatening to melt itself and you into glass by day and take you with it to a netherworld of crystallization. By night, this same abyss looming portentously with no solace granted by a black canvas of eternity ahead; a freeze straight through to your bones. In another desert, you find yourself battling geography and the impending loss of sanity. Exposure a constant threat, just trying to keep the blood in the tips of your fingers leaves you feeling numb from head to heart. Like nothing is possible, and the plight of humanity becomes overbearing. I suppose you really face these issues in both regions, but, for some reason, I always found the tundra the less pleasant of the two. Something not even water could cure.

But my challenge this day planted me in some Middle Eastern bad lands. I wish I could tell you where I was, but that would require me telling myself, as well. And I'm interested not in the least in possessing that knowledge. It's a place I'd like to forget. I can't. Some large bird of prey gliding patiently over me all through the day. Just waiting. He knew it was but a matter of time, and the feasting would be ripe. The gorging, the gouging of the eyes, stupendous. I had no options but to keep walking. Gone too far now and headed toward no civilization. Lost. The raptorial creature plodding along on his feet now with intermittent bursts of flight, grown weary from the effort. Confused as to why I had not grown weary with the walk. I'm worn. Weary of life. I hear that familiar grumbling. My stomach? No. That low laughter reverberating round me. An echo....re-echo, echo. They're all expecting me to die here. Soon. Now. I hit the sand, displacing it into my mouth and eyes. I can't feel the taste on my tongue. Just penetrating hotness. Arid and lashing through my gums. And now I'm blind. I wanted to bathe myself in this useless bath salt of nothing, of Hell, of discomfort and discord. I'm fading quickly. But a vision comes; presumably, my last.

From behind me two great angelic wings expand upward, straight into the sky. The feathers ruffle, and I can feel them begin to embrace me. I'm being sheltered and granted reprieve from this harsh fate. The deadly sun no longer tearing cancers in my flesh. My father had talked of angels before, but mostly he spoke of his god. The god of war. Be it Tyr, Odin, Mars, Enlil, or Ares. It mattered not. The prayers and petitions were always well-received. In every conflict raging, his god was there. He could feel the presence of some omniscient being. Quasi-omniscience. All-seeing tunnel vision. Betrayed by the lack of the peripheral. Never even saw an alternative coming. Never even knew it could exist. The voice of some celestial being begins calling out to me. But my ears, already severely handicapped in the execution of this task, being but mortal and badly injured, are unable to clearly discern the modulation proceeding forth from these celestial lips right before me. No mortally comprehensible voice or pitch. So, this is the end. He's come to greet me, and I can go to heaven after all....He caws in response.

I don't know why I didn't know then. Demons I had seen, had heard and felt. Sweeping past me, jeering all the while. Of angels, there were none. Not here. Not in this barren wasteland of my soul. A swarm of hatred sweeping over me, touching and gnashing its teeth and talons into me. Tearing at what little bit is left. A synthesized collection of demonic visages enveloping me. This was my lot. This was my plague.

Consciousness greeted me with a sharp stab to the calf. Another caw as I lunged forward instinctively and grasped the feathery wing of my assailant. It was my raptor. My angel-deliverer, afterall. Come to carry me to death. He must have been young, too. The attack came far too prematurely. My hand caught hold of his arched wing and with all the force left in my body, I threw myself backward, breaking bone and sinew. But it was all I could do. Although I left him badly injured, I was still no match while unconscious. Which is exactly what I was headed straight back to. Darkness sinking in. The edges of my vision blackening slowly. A bird of prey skulking laboriously over to my body. Pitch black.

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Are you afraid? Can you feel this? Can you imagine what I felt like? Giving in to this creature. Affording it certain victory. Not even dying in my own land....I didn't have a land. The vagabond versus the scavenger. I gave up that day. It was the first time ever. It was also the last. My father's god of war descended from the heavens. And his righteous indignation brought about my deliverance. Favors such as these aren't granted liberally.
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A thud right next to my head. Jolting awake once more, I see the rock still stirring up dust from its fall. The creature lying stunned right next to me. Not dead. A congregation of these unholy predators had assembled above, and they fell quickly upon the body of their brother. He cried out in agony. But his gods could be nothing greater than himself. Just as merciless and ravenously stricken with insatiable hunger. For blood. The flock soon turned to me.

A deep-throated scream in a language incomprehensible to me momentarily frightened them away. Looking up, a man. On a horse. A camel? I couldn't discern. Far too dehydrated and exasperated to focus on anything other than the blazing sun and the rustle of black closing in around me. A cloth bundle thrown to the ground by this man atop the beast of burden. The agitable scavengers jumping backwards briefly. Then circling round the package. I was hoisted up in front of this man then. He told me his name as he instructed his friend to run, quickly. It was a camel. I couldn't tell you anything else about it. How it felt, the sounds it made. It was all I could do to hold on....and thank the man. Thank my father's god.

I heard cries as we raced away. Terrifying wails. Looking back to my place of salvation, the cloth bundle now torn open and exposed. I saw something inside moving. And heard the cries of a baby begging the heavens for some miracle. I winced. Vertigo taking over. Wind piercing into my eyes as I turned forward again. The whines of the child silenced, dead now....The child....

I would have cried then, but there was nothing left to give. That day, all emotion faded in me. Every bit of justice silenced. Dead now.

We raced onward. Presumably to some encampment or oasis. So this is all it takes to get to paradise. This is all it takes to be delivered from the salivating jaws of Hell. I fell asleep.

And later awoke to find ashes in the place of paradise.

Living Long Enough

And a whistle in, a rustle... Well, darling, it's just the wind.

As we try to carve a niche in the aftermath of Eliot's Waste Land. As we try and fight, we try and...well, darling, we survived. I'm underwhelmed but mystified. The nervous tics will tell. Our blood collects in puddles between the drops of rain. And I catch you bathing in the cleansing spill.

Ponce de Leon? Can you hear me still?

The doors collapse, the uniforms flood through alongside bullets and preconceptions, preconditions. Fundamental beliefs we could never argue against. Or with.

He says he likes long walks through, well, whatever. The underbrush will do. Among the snakes and leaves and crab apples and holes I bashed into your head.

Tell me you love me still.

An inviting hand extended to a prostrate corpse. Brother, will you stand? And if not, I could dig through my skin and claw out these very veins--if that's what it takes.

A cosmo in the summershine. A rum in winter climes.

Dumping poison after poison after perfect pissing choir boys drunk on the front lawn have said all they have to say on personhood and palpitations of the heart.

Tell me. You love me still.

It's only our souls I've been speaking of. That and leather straps I locked around your wrists. And all the things we'd forget given long enough.

You sway gracefully from blood puddles and back into the rain.