So much of this game is waiting now. So much of this writing is waiting. So much of this dance of broken toys is being willing to wait for the adults to go to bed and leave the house quiet and dark so the cowardly and the cautious are comfortable coming out.
I wish I knew what I wanted to say, rather than how I want to say it. I want to say it quietly, intimately, with whispers and gestures and long strips of silence. I want to examine the nuance of a sigh, to feel the delicate curve of marble become flesh beneath my fingers, and know the warmth of breath on rough skin of my hands.
I want to be subversive, but even saying that out loud (or whispering it quietly onto paper) seems cliché. I do not have the courage to be subversive, I do not have the guts to risk my life stealing fire and spend my days kissing eagles, waiting for Hercules to unbind me.
I know that I am close. I know that I am near the thing. I can, having walked this far into the trees, torch throwing shadows wildly in every direction, feel the beating heart of the beast, the heart of the forest, and realize suddenly that every thing I mistook for an individual, each tree I mistook for an entity is not at all, but a single reaching feeler of the earth on which I am walking, and that I am no more separate from that earth, though I would sever myself as often as possible, the soles of my shoes and the skin of the pavement and the carpet of my room keeping me from the luscious feel of earth against the soft bottoms of my feet.
I want to read the scriptures and understand them, I want to hear the leathery voice of god in the turning pages of the ancient books whose words we know but do not understand. I want to feel the warm desert wind and the awkward shapes of impossibly old words tumble like bones from upturned tomb.
And I wonder, sitting in the night long after I should be in bed, if I’ve missed my window, if every opportunity for revolution that I passed on to go home and read and write were single chances to break free of this shell that I have inhabited for so long, and that, having passed them by, having passed by exciting conversations and opportunities at interaction for evenings of study and isolation if there’s anything left or if that’s all passed now and the night is no longer interested in having me.
And I wonder if this is all an illusion, if this is just the product of a tired mind and too much television. Too many dreams coated in saccharine laugh track and a seductive soundtrack. The delirium of an addict in withdrawal from electrical stimulants that have for so long supported him.
I want an intention for my writing, I want an intention for my life. I want to cut deeply into the wood of this branch and shape the blunt end of this rod into the sharp end of a spear. I want to shove it deeply into the coals of the fire and harden the tip until it is an unbreakable obsidian blade. I want to dive into the sky, ride the lightning, enter heaven and plunge my weapon deeply into the skin of god and be overwhelmed by the ecstasy of knowing and being known, to drown in the pure current of information as it pours over me, dissolving the crude flesh that’s wrapped about the perfect soul I posses, but cannot access.
And then I wonder, one more time, because this is what I do when my belly’s full, stare at the sky wonder if I’ve got this all wrong, all backward, all fucked up and twisted, and the flesh is real and the soul is an illusion and all this searching the sky for answers is just a waste of precious energy.
And I know, I know the answers lie somewhere between the flesh and the spirit, that somewhere in the symbiosis of the two lies an answer, but probably not The Answer. And I keep poking this finger in the fabric of existence, like my tongue against the irritated flesh of my mouth, unable to keep from exploring the pain with a dedicated an academic manner, recording the sensations with a specificity and articulation that would make the most avid masochist proud. But what else is there to do, lying here with a belly full of food and eyes that seem made for staring into heaven, wondering if there’s a god?
