Truth or Bukut

So...last night was interesting. Very educational.  Very revealing.  I may have made an ass of myself.  That's nothing new.  I think I admitted something I shouldn't have.  Something that was pretty obvious for the world to see but should have simply gone unsaid.  At least I think so.

I think so.  I don't know so, and I'm still not entirely convinced, that is, that I believe so.  The tension is out in the air now.  It may not have been the ideal method, but its out there.  I've admitted to Her that....  Anyway, its out there.  So why is it so difficult to move forward from that?  Cuz I'm a big fat scaredy cat, that's why.  Its a bit cliche, perhaps,  but I have the feeling that this might change everything.  We won't feel as comfortable talking about the stupid shit that we usually do.  We'll perhaps take one another a little too seriously.  Feelings.  That's what's on the line here.  That's what's bound to get hurt. 

So i tried bringing it up.  Online.  Not my favorite method.  God knows I know better than to try and express myself in live text chat.  Something like this needs to be communicated face to face.  Completely with pauses that aren't simply from 'Got up to get a glass of water'.  Complete with information that can be expressed only in glances, and in faces.  Faces that don't consist of a colon or semi-colon, that is.  And...perhaps culminating in some wordless expression.  Something physical.  Maybe a...

She laughed it off mostly.  Changed the subject.  Then went off-line for a couple hours.  Should I try it again?  Should I push the issue?  Should i ask for face-time instead?

Should I even be pursuing this?

I'd already decided not to.  I'd already decided that whatever this is had met its ending.  But...what if there's a chance?  I'd been doing some thinking and...I have to do a bit more.  I have to give a name to this.  Does my physical attraction outweigh my personal connection to Her?   Do I want to touch her skin and feel her warmth?  Or do I want to be the one that makes her warm?  Am I okay with just doing the latter, like i do now?  If I eat this cake, will I be full?  And for how long?

An argument with myself

Upon writing a poem that I'm still not brave enough to let the world know about.

Do I have to insert morality?  Whats the purpose of this exactly?

Its just a fantasy.  Nothing wrong with that.

But what does that say about me?

It says you have a penis and it talks to you.

Is it my penis that's been writing poetry all this while?

Your penis is a dick.  You're just the kind of guy that'll lend a caring ear to just about anyone.  Even if that someone is a dick.

A gate of ivory, A gate of horn

Once, back when Merri was still here, back when we regularly shared the same bed, I had a dream.

In my dream I was in the most perfect place.  A paradise I could hardly recognize.  And it was the perfect day.  I was leaving a tiny room through a plain wooden door and I stepped outside to greet the rising sun ambling skyward, steaming as it rose from the sea.  I dipped my toes in the sand, considered the hues of color in the sky for a moment, and began walking.  I still don't know where I was going, but I was alone.  And I wanted to find...someone.  Anyone to share this day with.  I was walking to her.

I didn't know who she was or what she looked like, but I did know who she wasn't.  She wasn't Merri.  This was an odd brand of guilt.  One flavored by elation, excitement and disappointment.  Not disappointment for my behavior or actions.  But...for being allowed to behave this way.  That doesn't really explain it.  I don't know if I can explain it.  For that matter I don't know if I should.  It was just a dream.

But after i'd stepped out into the perfect day and went out looking for her, I didn't really get very far since...she was already on her way to find me.

On her way to find me.

You might be thinking 'Okay, this is where things get hot and steamy.  He's gonna talk about breasts and penises now.'  Its not.  Sorry to disappoint.  We just sat, once we'd found one another.  Sat and chatted a bit, but I was still buzzing with the idea that she was looking for me!  The elation I was feeling in my dream-heart just talking to her was just as good as infidelity.

Especially considering the fact that every time I turned to look over my shoulder I would see Merri.  Sitting there.  Looking blankly, though not at me.  Never at me.  I'd call her name but she wouldn't respond.  We'd go on chatting, me and she, and every so often I'd look back at Merri to find...she wasn't all that concerned.  So...I thought...what else could we do?  Right here?  In front of Merri?

When I woke up she was on the far side of the bed and for the first time...first of many...our backs were turned.  I should have paid attention to this.  I should have paid attention to a lot of things.  But sometimes...you're so desperate to hold on to the good things, that you let the bad ones slide. 

Anyway, I was wracked with guilt.  I turned and pulled her to me, kissing her firmly awake.  I didn't tell her about the dream.  It was just a dream.

Just a dream.

***

That was ages ago.  Don't even remember the date.  But today...today I had the most wonderful day.  I haven't seen Merri in a year.  I haven't spoken to her in months.  People ask me about her.  I smile and give them old information.  I think about her constantly.

This morning I showered, and got dressed, in the bathroom of the tiny Hotel room Sean and I are sharing for the weekend.  I stepped through the green wooden door and onto the 'lawn' of the hotel, which is all sea sand.  The sun was already up.  The waves were sparkling under it.  A cool wind blew at me from nearly all directions.

I did go looking for her.  I'm loathe to admit it.  I feel so guilty.  In fact, i felt pretty dumb since she wasn't looking for me.  She wasn't even awake yet.

But she did wake up earlier.  And she had been looking for me.  Or at least she seemed to be.  She tends to talk in her sleep.  It might have been real.  It might have been just a dream.

An Argument that Never Happened

"Maybe we shouldn't do this."

You mean maybe you don't want to do this.  Based on nothing more than your own doubts, neuroses, and personal hangups.  Things that you search for so keenly in me because then you don't have to feel so guilty about having them.

"We're not going anywhere."

We've already come so far!  But maybe you're right.  I'm not willing to get hitched and get you knocked up so you can fulfill your dream of living without any clear means of supporting ourselves.  Sorry I wasted your time.

"I thought you would be the one to turn it all around."

And I thought we were meant to accept one another, faults an all.  I wasn't aware you needed fixing.

"I think I give up."  "I'm too tired."

Me too.  I don't know what else to do if "I love you" doesn't work.  If showing it doesn't work.  If I haven't convinced you by now, I don't know if I ever will.

[A dark day in January, 2009]
[Which is truly worse: The things we say to the ones we love or the things we only say to ourselves?]

Cunt-Junk-thief-eye-tease

So now I'm sitting in the Lobby at St. Luke's wondering what hot sin I could have committed to earn this latest helpiong of Pink Eye.  of all the songs we used to sing during primary school devotions, "Be Careful little eye s what you see." was the one I took the least seriously.  Its actually one of my favorites to ignore, right up there with "be careful little hands where you go."  But after Janelle Usher unceremoniously swatted my hand off her thigh in the middle of Infant II language arts class, I was much more careful with  my hands, and a whole lot freer with my eyes.

Before you ask, my little hands did not wander into my ass, and then into my little eyes.

...at least not consciously.

[January, 2009.  Waiting in the Lobby of St. Luke's Medical Clinic]

Morpheus's Garden

Yesterday I was at work until about six, elbow deep in networking concepts, virtual storage space, and various other banalities.  I could feel the grayness creeping its way into my brain.  It was then that I said screw it, and headed for home.

I stopped at the market.  Picked up some mangoes and bananas, some cauliflower and broccoli, and trudged my way home.  Once there I poured myself a rusty nail and got cooking.  Pork chops in a Mango-Teriyaki marinade and steamed veggies on the side.

The rest of my evening was pretty uneventful.  In fact, the above is pretty damn uneventful, but I've told you about that to tell you about the dream I had that night.

I was walking along the sidewalk down some seemingly random street.  The sunlight was quickly being replaced by streetlights, and the urban exterior was gradually being replaced by something a lot greener.  Grass was creeping into the cracks in the sidewalk and as I hurried along my way I suddenly realized slender vines were simultaneously reaching out for me.  My head followed my gaze, which followed the green, and before I knew it I'd stopped in front of a garden.  On both sides were brownstones, and I could see the very top of a strip of apartment buildings to the back, but tucked in the middle was a garden.  The white brick wall in the front was making a valiant effort at keeping the green contained, but ultimately failing as the tops of trees peered over it, and on those trees were vines and bearded moss that mocked the walls authorities, climbed down its external surface, and reached out for passers-by such as myself.  The Iron Gate had suffered from the garden's rebellion as well.  The hinges had rusted and it lay to one side of the entrance, broken and moss covered.  It had been waiting here, this garden.  It had been waiting for me to pass by, and now it was inviting me in.

The entrance was shaded by a row of trees planted at equal distance apart, as if in an orchard, and over time the canopy had grown together and filtered the streetlight through so it was more like starlight, twinkling.  The smell in the air was sweet and familiar.  Black Berries! I could see them now, hanging heavy from the lowest limbs.  The biggest black berries I'd ever seen!  They would leave my mouth purple for weeks! 

I took a few steps toward one bunch and suddenly realized I wasn't alone.  There was a woman there, standing under the canopy.  She had light brown skin and bright white teeth, almond eyes and chestnut hair that was braided and wrapped high atop her head, so high that it was almost touching the cluster of berries she was standing underneath.  And that's all she was doing.  Standing there and being beautiful.  And in the way.

"Hello."  I said as I approached.  She hadn't seen me until I spoke, and when she did she smiled at me with the sweetest smile a face like that could possible hold.  "Do you mind if I..." I indicated the berries just above her head.
"Sorry," She replied.  "I have a boyfriend."
"Actually I just wanted too...."  And again I pointed at the berries.  She just stood there, looking cute.

So what was I to do?  I readied the plastic bag (which I just happened to be carrying) and gingerly held it open with one hand while the other hand reached above the girl and toward the berries.  I didn't pick them, but caressed the firmly.  The ones that were ready tumbled happily into the bag, which was halfway full when the girl bellow began giggling.

"I really don't think my boyfriend would approve of this." She said, and I suddenly realized that in my eagerness to get to the berries I'd been leaning against her quite a bit.  I found it odd that she hadn't moved.  I found it downright disturbing that she seemed to be enjoying this.  I left her and found another cluster of berries, but there was another woman beneath it, even more beautiful than the last.  She was dark, so dark that her smooth skin shone over her long legs and arms and face.  The street-light-star-light twinkled against her cheekbones and the curve of her hips, and there was a permanent smile in her eyes.  She saw me.  She most definitely saw me.  And I had a feeling that she didn't have a boyfriend.  I decided I'd had enough berries for one evening, and moved on.

There were little rows of bushes just beyond that.  Pepper trees and Okra trees trimmed and trained to grow low and wide, just like the ones that lined the house at my grandparents' farm.  I grazed from them, pressing the tips of the slender okra with my thumb, the way my father taught me.  The ones that snapped I pulled off and dropped them into the bag with the berries.  The peppers I didn't touch, but I marveled in their colors.  Reds and oranges like fresh embers.  Greens and purples that promised something toxic.  Even in the fake light they were dazzling.

The real prize lay further ahead, though I wouldn't have guessed it.  It was, perhaps, the strangest tree I'd ever seen.  If I had to give it a name I'd call it a book tree.  It did grow out of the ground, but more as if it had been dropped there and forgotten, and time and entropy had tried to conquer it, leading an invasion up its base, but ultimately failing there.  Before me stood a bookshelf made of yellowish wood, sanded and polished to perfection.  The grain still shone through on the back and the sides.  There was no moss.  There were no vines.  The garden accepted this as part of itself.  The books were packed in tight beside one another, but they didn't jostle for space or complain.  They were books, much too noble for that sort of behavior.  I ran my fingers over the countless spines, scanning the titles as I went by.  The sweetness of the berries couldn't compare to the prize held here.  I managed to get a grip on one of them and pull it from the shelf.  A biography of Malcolm X.

It wasn't until I had the book in my hands...

No, it wasn't until I was walking away with it, making my way past the humble shrubs and past the beautiful trees with their beautiful fruit and the beautiful women.  Not until I stepped past the broken gate and began trudging down the sidewalk laden with a bag of fruit and holding a book possessively to my chest that I suddenly realized what I'd done.  The garden may have been trying to find me, it may have invited me in, it may have presented me with a dozen pleasures for me to accept, decline, or not notice all together, but what had I done to deserve it?  All I'd done was take.  I took its fruit, I took a book, I enjoyed being there and I hadn't even said thank you.  Surely there had been others before me who had been invited in, but if everyone just took as they pleased and gave nothing back there's no way that splendor could have lasted this long. 

I was consumed with guilt.  I turned back hoping to find it again and somehow replenish what I'd taken.  I didn't make it back, though.  I stopped before I got to the broken gate when I realized that, in truth, I had nothing to give.  Not right now.  But there would be a time when I did, and I would stalk my own dreams in search of the garden.  I'd bring a book with me, something beautiful that others need to read, and I'd slide it in the space where the book I'd taken had been.

I don't know how it works for you, but it's usually then, when I realize that I actually am dreaming that I'm closest to waking.  I'd like to find that garden again.  As far as recurring dreams go, it's got to be better than that stupid one where there are strangers in my back yard.

I'll tell you about that some other time.