new design

Fri, 2007-02-02 09:08 — aaron
Teaser: 
I have a new design in progress, and will keep folks updated. The current theme is out of the box for a contributed theme for Drupal, so I want to make something unique for Culture Fix. Here's a sample of what I have in mind; it may change as I develop it. Let me know if you have any comments or suggestions for the new theme!
image: 

the gas valve

Wed, 2007-01-31 11:44 — aaron
Teaser: 

global warming has been really depressing me lately. i finally got around to watching an inconvenient truth a few weeks ago, and though global warming has been in the cultural psyche since i was a kid, it has usually been there as a punchline or minor annoyance, something of far less import than, say, terrorism or britney spears. even with my personal interest and awareness of things gone globally awry, such as colonialism and all things corporate, global warming has simply been one of those things we need to keep an eye on.

i had no idea what's been going on. oh, so sad that polar bears are drowning because their ice is melting so quickly they can't swim to the next ice floe. or that new orleans is sinking into the gulf of mexico. but even those seemed just drops in the bucket compared to the war in iraq or the corporate takeover of the united $tates.

al gore really lays into it. he dazzles you with power points and drastic facts. he peels away the white wash of the media, and lets you know how bad it's going to get, and how bad it already is. by the end of the documentary, i was left both with the heavy guilt of knowing i've been part of the problem, and the helpless feeling that even if i took myself off the grid and planted a tree every day, we're still taking a one-way trip to the deep south.

but after a little research, i learned that gore was holding back. things are even worse. we've found the gas valve to the planet, and just gave it a lit. and we're going to burn, baby, burn...

 

Body: 

so just what's going on? why should we be worried? sure, we might lose some coastal areas, but the netherlands was built from reclaimed sea, right? we can do the same with new orleans?

well, let's see. we've learned now that not only is new orleans sinking, it's literally sliding off the continental shelf, because of decades of drilling for oil. and by the end of the century, not only will all the beaches in the world erode by 600 feet, the u.s. will have lost the equivalent of massachussets in dry land.

storms. sure we'll have a few more hurricanes. but katrina aside, we can weather a few storms.

here's a problem in reporting i noticed last fall. on one report, they said it was a disappointment for hurricanes last year, with nothing like katrina to hit the newspapers. but on the eleven o'clock news, as a side note, they mentioned that a 'typhoon' in china created a million and a half evacuees. here's an issue with symantics: in the western hemisphere, we call it a hurricane, while if it happens in the pacific, we call it a typhoon. same difference, folks. 2006 was the strongest year for hurricanes ever. it just happened we didn't get anything noteworthy on our side of the ocean this year.

temperature rising? break out the lemonade!

living in sunny connecticut has been a trip these past few years. i come from the south, so i grumbled every winter as i broke out the snow shovel and had to learn new coping skills (such as using a broom to sweep off the snow from your windshield). this last winter, though? it was frickin' 70 in january. how creepy is that? a little piece on page 9 said that in 50 years (and god willing, i'll be around to see that), connecticut's climate will be like georgia. nice place to retire! but wait, what does that make georgia by 2057?

so apparently, last year was the hottest year in the history of the planet. and nine of the ten past years have been the hottest years on record. what's going on?

well, so here's the deal. we're pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere like nobody's business. bush's plan to cut carbon emissions by 20% in ten years? he's talking about cutting 20% off the projected growth. he's selling an increase in carbon production by telling us it's emissions reduction. huh? oh, that's right, i forgot, this is america. where we save more by buying more.

so what's the big deal about carbon dioxide? well, the deal is the sun. the sun is a big furnace, baking the planet. so what happens is that most of the sun rays bounce back into outer space, giving any alien tourists a nice view of the earth. carbon dioxide is a warm, cozy blanket, causing a few of those rays to stick around awhile. good for us, because otherwise it would be like pluto, and we would all be freezing our asses in aboslute zero.

problem is, the planet has evolved over the past three billion years to have a fairly steady temperature. people and cows breathe in oxygen, exhale carbon dioxide. trees breathe in carbon dioxide, exhale oxygen. a nice little stasis where all the plants and animals stay happy. but then we come along and cut down all the trees! pump up billions of tons of oil and burn it! we're sucking on this giant cigarette in a small closet and wondering why it's getting so smoky.

the thing is, carbon that we put into the atmosphere stays there. carbon dioxide has a half-life in the atmosphere of 200 years. that means that even if we stopped driving altogether this minute and turned off all our factories, all that co2 we just pumped into the sky over the past century is still going to be around for awhile. and that means we would still be facing the devastating effects of global warming. but wait, we're not going to slow down, we're still planning to increase the production of carbon dioxide? and that's not even taking china, the planned successor to the united states for the leadership of the planet, into account.

al gore has a nice little prop he uses in his slide show presentations. he has this graph going along the stage, showing carbon dioxide and global temperature increases over the past sixty million year. it's a stable little wavy line changing little across the fifty feet of the stage. then it gets to now, and the line is over his head, already warmer than ever in the history of life on the planet. so al wants to show us what's coming up next, and he can't reach it. so he gets this forklift. and reveals the rest of the rising line, and it's literally off the chart. (that's called the hockey stick graph, by the way. it's famous in the circles of global warming enthusiasts.) (and another tangent: ever hear about the global warming "debate"? a recent survey of over 900 scientific articles on global climate change published in the last ten years, discovered that every single article either supported the idea that global warming is human-caused, or didn't comment one way or another on the cause. there is no debate. that's a fiction perpetuated by the media for the benefit of bush and co.)

so if you live in southern california, i hope you don't mind retiring in 140 degree summers. and dc? sure, maybe you can tolerate the 110 degree summers. but when greenland slides into the north atlantic and shuts down the ocean's thermohaline circulation, i hope you're ready for -50 degree winters as well.

but folks, that's only in a hundred years. and that's if we stopped producing excess carbon dioxide this moment! carbon dioxide, let me repeat, has a half-life of two hundred years. and it's going to keep right on baking things. ever heard of venus? oh, sure, maybe the wealthy part of society can keep on living in climate-controlled bubbles while the rest of the peons get right toasty in the 400 degree shade. but wait a minute, we haven't even been able to make a probe that can land on venus without melting.

i don't know. one of my first lessons in life was to not play with the oven. the tough news is that while some of us might be waiting for our mothers to remind us not to play with fire, she's not coming. christian fundamentalists and their savior aside, we're on our own, folks. we get to make our own decisions, we get to suffer our own consequences, and no one's going to mourn us after we've turned the gas too high and stuck our heads in the oven.

image: 

soliloquies of a suburban white

Thu, 2007-01-18 02:02 — billy
Teaser: 
martin luther king claims that
the negro of 1963 understood the significance of
one hundred years since emancipation.
if so, how far are we from that consciousness?
four decades?
two generations?
further?
Body: 
1.

in a northern city
statues commemorate the union dead
in a southern city
the confederate.
how much of a difference is this?
martin luther king claims that
the negro of 1963 understood the significance of
one hundred years since emancipation.
if so, how far are we from that consciousness?
four decades?
two generations?
further?

2.

a generation of children
tear one another to shreds
driven by drugs, diamonds,
and a willing 'market' economy.
in africa, we call that 'civil war.'
in this country, we call it 'gang violence.'
what's the distinction?
the africans have:
more resources
more money changing hands &
more deaths.
in short, they're doing a better job
at a horrible thing.

3.

there is this:
the offspring of european settlers in africa
were honest
in calling africa their home.
it was, in the truth of it,
a painful contradiction.
to be in a place you clearly don't belong
- resting on a history of theft and murder-
and yet, unmistakably,
grounded.

4.

to go a place
solely to help
is the first mistake.
among mistakes, there are worse.
but self-proclaimed helpfulness
is one of the harder errors
to admit to.

5.

can a horror be stopped
by speaking of it more clearly,
more accurately?
there seems to be little evidence for that position.
still, the believers of this viewpoint
continue to push on
and proselytize,
to boot.

soliloquies of a suburban white

Thu, 2007-01-18 02:00 — billy
Teaser: 
our system has been imploding,
and assaulted from various directions
but still lands on its feet
due – in large part -
to the heartless perseverance of a small handful of mercenaries.
Body: 
1.

in my parent's lifetime, my country has become an empire.
we have, once again,
taken over where the british left off.
as the sun sets on british dominance,
americans become the enforcers of submission
in an increasingly
rebellious
and unrepentant world.
men my father's age have made it their life's work
to do 'whatever is necessary'
to keep their bosses
boss of all.
their careers comprise a web of stories
so intricate and brutal that
it's yet to be told.
and i am a child of their aspirations,
and achievements.

2.

surviving the unraveling of
life-as-you-know-it
is an art.
you may know that people
have legitimate reasons to be furious
as a result of your actions,
and still you must set about to destroy them.
most us will never begin to comprehend
what has been required
to keep things the way they are.
our system has been imploding,
and assaulted from various directions
but still lands on its feet
due – in large part -
to the heartless perseverance of a small handful of mercenaries.

3.

in the moments when our struggles
bubble up and overflow
in dozens of places throughout the world at once
(which is, luckily, virtually always)
our rulers frequently know better than us
the connections between them.
for us, connecting to struggles internationally
is a strategic advantage.
for the powerful,
it's a strategic imperative.
a few good things can be said about marxism.
one is that they encouraged generations of thinkers
to consider “international solidarity.”

4.

each generation grows up
with the propaganda of their times,
and precious little else.
if we're lucky,
the generation that came before us will,
in re-evaluating their own lives,
tear cracks in the clean uniformity of our world.

Who is dead?

Thu, 2007-01-18 00:58 — billy
Teaser: 
I wrote this story when I was 17, and I still find it a harrowing depiction of both child abuse and healing from old wounds.
Body: 
October 18th, 1993:

"What were you thinking when you walked away?"
Silence.
"What the fuck was running through your mind?"
She turned away and glanced over at the closet. She pretended not to hear.
"Hey! You can't keep doing this over and over again! Running and running."
"Look, I've got enough problems without you butting into my life and starting a raucus."
She returned to her ritual of thumbing through the shirts hanging. She was in a hurry.
"All I need to know is what you could have possibly been thinking. Answer me why. Answer me how. HOW??"
This ends so loud that she drops the blue denim shirt she was preparing to wear and and jumps into the air. Regaining her composure, she answers, still immersed in the project of dressing rather than the actual conversation.
"That day is over. Thirteen years over. You keep making me live it. On and on and on. But I won't let you do it. I won't let you destroy me like that. God damn it! Don't you understand? I can't change that day. Leave me alone already."
"What the fuck? Are you so callous? Who is dead? Who is dead? What--"
As she leaves her room, she places a photo of a young boy face down on her dresser. For a moment something in it catches her eye, but quickly she becomes disgusted by what she sees, as if infected by a disease. She exits, almost running, and slams the front door behind her.

May 7th, 1974:

Terrence sits alone on the kitchen floor. He is playing with the camera his father received as a christmas present. He knows it makes neat images come out of it, but, despite lots of effort, he can't figure out how. Now 23 pieces. Now 29. His mother is entertaining friends. She told him, "run along nicely now, and don't get in any trouble." Terrence has forgotten all about that. That was well over an hour ago. It's 6:19pm. At six twenty five, the guests request a little more wine. "Just a second, I'll be right with you - don't have too much fun without me." It's loud enough to be heard in the kitchen. Now 34 pieces. The door swings open, high heels on linoleum. A careless humming meander. Crash. Glass flies across the kitchen floor. "Fuck! You little bastard! I'm gonna kill you! Oh, and look, you're playing with daddy's camera! You've ruined everything!" She begins scrambling on the ground after her horrified son: "Don't you run away from me you little shitface!" This would never have been a problem before 'Constantina' left. Open hand. Crash again. This time three bones shatter, matching the wine glasses. Blood with wine, one white linoleum. Terrence's world has only one color: black.

Terrence is three years old. This is life, and it has just begun.

June 21st, 1977:

"We are concerned about Terrence. We've noticed that very rarely do other children play with terrence. We think perhaps this is a sign of his intelligence, as we see him reading just about constantly. Nonetheless, we're not sure that Terrence can really reach his full potential when so socially isolated. We've tried various different things, but we've decided that this is probably not the right environment for his growth. We are sad to see him leave and we wish the best of luck in Terrence's future." This is the note the school left Terrence's mother when he was expelled from first grade.

Terrence has his own thoughts about his social progression; here's a note from his journal: "Sometimes I think about the other kids. I wonder why they act the way they do. They all seem so plastic, like GI Joe figurines. More silly are the teachers; they all pretend like everything is lots of fun and nothing ever goes wrong. They tell you constantly about all the fun you're having when all you're doing is learning stupid stuff like addition and gluing macaroni to paper plates for your parents. What a lie. I don't ever want to live like them..."

Tonight as he brushes his teeth, he notices the bruise over his left eye. His mother did not appreciate the fact that he was expelled.

January 4th, 1980:

Terrence's father visited last weekend. That was nice. His mother left him alone. They both did. Except for friday night when his mom made him dress up in his tuxedo: "Now, look nice for daddy. You don't want to make daddy mad, do you?" He shook his head. At 8:30 his father arrived, two hours late. Back from Bermuda. Strictly business, of course. He had a present for Terrence. Good thing, it's been six and a half years since they'd seen one another. Strictly business, of course. It was a camera. His very own. "Run along nicely now, and don't get in any trouble." He read the entire manual, cover to cover. He stood in front of the bathroom mirror for over an hour. He posed in every which direction, taking photos of himself. He took four rolls worth - all of himself.

March 7th, 1980:

Blood ran down Terrence's face. His white shirt was tattered and stained red throughout. Tears streaked down his face and he did his best to scream out,"Mommy I hate you! I hate you mommy!" Passersby only heard screaming. The neighbors were probably more curious than compassionate. He falls to the ground. His limp body battered yet again by the gravel of the driveway. His mother stands about nine feet away, in silent awe. She watches him as his body shivers from the torture of the brutality she has inflicted on him. She herself has about a dozen bottles of wine, all carefully displayed on the mantle. She is among the scene only in body. Her son is having that drained from him. As his strength begins to totally leave him, he only mouthes the words, "Mommy, mommy, why mommy? why?" She knows what he's saying. She knows he could survive with medical attention. It would be the seventeenth time the doctor would heal Terrence's wounds from "accidents." As he lays there, softly dying, she walks away, as if turning away from an empty street. His body convulses one last time and he is able to release one last plea for help. She enters the house and his body becomes numb. In two hours the police will find his body decaying, but they will never find his killer.

November 11th, 1994:

The room is quiet. On the dresser is a photograph of Terrence at age nine, a self-portrait. On the bed, his mother is in the fetal position, in tears. She is screaming to an empty room: "I thought nothing that day. I was dead for fourteen years. I am alive now, awakened by the memory of you. It's destroying me Terrence. I feel every blow. Fourteen years, Terrence. I feel every blow. I feel the blood drip down to my mouth. I feel my flesh fall away. I feel the tears well up inside me and explode in violent desparation. I feel your death Terrence. It has reincarnated me. You can rest in peace now. I will bleed for you. I will bleed for you..."


"all there is left to do"

Sat, 2007-01-13 01:36 — billy
Teaser: 

a poem/letter from a used-to-be bestest friend and lover and comrade and sister in the world.

how clearly i am seen in this piece makes it seem appropriate to share on my own blog.

Body: 
i laid a pillow on my bed.
i set books beside my pillow.
the space left for me was
uncannily the size of
the space left for me
for two years in the beds we shared in
a time that seems long ago.
Sweet time, holy time, sometimes.
Sometimes a time wrought with distress.

What I remember in this moment
is the way you massaged this aching back
Or you rubbed my short hair and tugged it.
I recall you laughing in my ear.
I recall singing in the dark with you.

I said things then, like,
"Remind me to do this or that in the morning."
You replied things like,
"Okay."
And i would ask silly things, like,
"Promise?"
You replied sensible things, like,
"I'll try. I love you."

Till the last, I drank your scent like ambrosia;
Till the last it felt sacred to be held by you.
I regret only
I didn't hold you as much.

I dreamt last night
a familiar story.
I was in bed with you
and She lay between us.
She was Anyone and She was my friend.
Through the dream more and more
Was asked of me.
Herculean emotional tasks
being a sister to her and an ex-lover to you.
Struggling through impossible cirumstances
I had questions for you.
Why was this happening?
Why couldn't we all be happy, not just two at a time?
Was i also your sister, or just your ex-lover?
and, now, i want to ask,
Why am i still dreaming this story?

But what i remember in this moment
is that you held my shaking, crying
body
And you stroked my trembling skin
till i was still.
I reached out my cupped hands
to show you a particle of hope
And it flooded our dreams with joy.
Exhausted, there was nothing left to do
But sleep soundly.

I recall this vividly.
Our bodies made
insurpassable harmony, always.
The sharp sweet expression
of unpeeling an orange.
Dolphins breaking the air.
Seeds coupling with the soil.
We made the heat of a new star, birthed.
We crowded the night above us
with flying violins.

I am determinedly far away and
that time seems long ago.
You and I speak rarely
but i want to ask a favor.
Remind me to remember in the morning.
Okay.
Promise?

I draw close to my stack of books
and sleep soundly.
That is all there is left to do.

soliloquies of a suburban white

Tue, 2007-01-09 04:40 — billy
Teaser: 
wherever the lines are drawn, they cut through us.
Body: 
1.

An Afrikaaner can spend 40 years of his life
and not have any idea of the blackness of his nation.
this is not wishful thinking, it is social fact
(carefully orchestrated, as most are).
in other words, any struggle against racialism must
-in the first place-
establish that racialism is, in fact, functioning.
in other words, those who oppose race must *exist* first,
and from there some insistence, some disruption can be made.
ideally, the disruptive act simultaneously proves the existence
of the system that is being sabotaged.

2.

Does a racial system make itself known through the ambiguities
or the hard edges?
one hundred years of terror following reconstruction
is clear enough.
but don't the decades following the civil rights act
sting more?
black-face minstrel shows re-prove a certain point,
and yet, what is the 2nd generation asian-american engineer
if not a peculiar kind of a caricature?
wherever the lines are drawn, they cut through us.

3.

Children in this country grow
slowly cognizant of the void
that must be their identity.
a society that cleaves apart and tears asunder ethnicity
cannot answer the most basic questions
of its offspring.
when "who am i?" no longer has a satisfactory answer,
the moral fabric of a nation is of no use.
there are those who cling to old identities:
teachings from places and times
that are not here and now
but they are ridiculed by their conditions.
the dominant 'culture' will not allow for their nostalgia,
and their children refuse to believe.

Brujo Shit

Tue, 2007-01-09 03:50 — billy
Teaser: 

“what first inspired you to resist the status quo?”

“inspiration is the wrong word. it was desperation. it was a survival instinct, a rebellion, an intuitive rebellion…the images i saw on TV were all of families that all liked each other and treated each other good and everything, but that wasn’t my family....

Body: 

brujo shit

“what first inspired you to resist the status quo?”

“inspiration is the wrong word. it was desperation. it was a survival instinct, a rebellion, an intuitive rebellion…the images i saw on TV were all of families that all liked each other and treated each other good and everything, but that wasn’t my family. in my family, we were all concerned with the needs of my alcoholic father. we didn’t like each other in my family, we didn’t treat each other good. and then i went to high school, and i just couldn’t do all the stupid stuff that they tried to get me to do, so i did whatever i wanted instead and got in more and more trouble…i figured – and i had a lot of encouragement in this viewpoint – that i was just a criminal. i could maybe deny it or try and hide it, but basically i couldn’t. the reality that i experienced sharply contrasted the reality that everyone else claimed to experience…”

-andy keniston

inspiration is really the wrong word. i advocate conflagration to reconcile my heart with the world outside of me. the only given seems to be that i will experience a rift inside myself, a misery that i cannot translate to those i love, no matter how hard i try. the misery we share is barely acknowledged as misery, if it is spoken of at all.

i notice i’m not fundamentally different from the religionists – fervently adhering to a desperate sense that justice and decency will prevail. i wonder how one could do without some sort of belief to make it through the grinding repetition of american life. the predictable, cold, driving, viciousness of the way we live is like a cloud of contagious gas which plagues me at all hours. i cannot run far or fast enough to escape the cruelty of our civilization.

and i am still naïve enough to read stories from the past as if i don’t know the ending. my sense of surprise when i learn that the voices for liberation were slaughtered is genuine. how else could i keep reading?

when my uncle was my age, he fled chicago to find a quiet place to fade into his alcoholism, and his weary, appalled sadness in reaction to the calm, calculated, and clearly counter-intelligence murder of fred hampton. ten years of drunkenness like an unriddable virus, the type of rage that lands people in jail, and a whole series of decisions that he will never cease to regret. ten years sinking into his own desperation, letting it overtake him and swallow his passion to live another way. ten years of surrendering to the supremacy of the beast.

i don’t know how to moralize against this anymore. what is the cogent argument for why my uncle should have continued to wade through the blood of the empire and call out through the haze for a world that lives?

two summers ago, when my uncle attempted suicide, i rode down to baltimore with my mother, and spent the whole ride arguing against her desire to give him a firm talking to. though shaken and terrified, a part of her still thought it necessary to tell my uncle what people “should” do – what’s “right” and so on.

i was belligerent: “unless you can offer him a dignified alternative to the current labor choices in america, his decision to die is perfectly reasonable.”

the dignified alternatives are few and substantially invisible. thoroughly irreasonably, we live on.

so inspiration is the wrong word. arson begins inside us, and threatens to overtake us completely, unless we offer the flames some release. to survive, to preserve our dim hopes for an enjoyable existence, we choose something else to destroy, and begin setting fires. unless there is some profound transformation, the rest of our lives will be spent feeding and spreading those flames, and yet keeping them from torching our hearts, minds, flesh.

perhaps we need a good deal more myth. “brujo shit.” time to start telling stories about healing fires – the rebirth of the prairie, the crops that feed on ashes, the forest which burns so that it might live. maybe it doesn’t even take that much. just the slightest little glimmer of a chance and, thoroughly irreasonably, we live on.

i stay bouyed up high enough to breathe knowing that my uncle lives on knowing that i live on. i have chosen not to resign myself fully to the slumber of my self-hatred, addiction, and hopelessness because i am not living only for myself.

but the winters grow colder, longer, lonelier. and the fascists grow stronger, more subtle, more overt, more cohesive, more numerous, more unanimous. time grinds against us – each setting sun takes with it another bit of evidence for the notion that, somehow, all of this will give way to something meant to sustain human beings.

i said in philadelphia, 2001, “if they kill my uncle, i’ll ravage the motherfuckers, i’ll totally lose control…” no matter how my uncle dies, i will blame america; i blame her in advance.

i told him when i was 14, “i can’t make peace with the so-called normal people. i tried. i just can’t do it.” and he told me that i could walk the warrior’s path – hard, unforgiving and relentless.

once you begin walking this way, you can’t walk any other way. the world burns around you, and you walk on.

somehow, thoroughly irreasonably, we live on.

inspiration is the wrong word…

We Trace Together Us

Tue, 2007-01-09 03:42 — billy
Teaser: 

the traces of our time = us

there is nothing else....

in time, all betrayals are mutual.

Body: 
we trace together - us


I.


in time, all betrayals are mutual.

it comes slowly

and you see it only from the backside

or it smacks you down

suddenly

everyone involved knows

  • and no one could tell them –

something dies,

disappears,

disintegrates.


we have crossed into a space that will suffocate us.


II.


what i need to thrive

we create

i lose me

without us.

the traces of our time = us

there is nothing more

what is shared

what is remembered

we trace, together - us.


III.


slow, fragile, stretching


love is an attempt to not-wound.

all building is re-building

all turning-towards is

turning-against old wounds.

love is forgetting betrayed.


a person cannot decide to stop longing


connection is human being.


IV.


in time, all betrayals are mutual.


we trace, together,

bitter sadness and rage

indelible.

the worst moments stick worst of all

and worst of all, they erase the other moments


slow, fragile, stretching

all building is re-building


ok, so start again!


but how to re-build into and onto

a structure disintegrating,

disappearing?


turning against the wounds we gave

each other

and turning, again, into

each other


V.


love is an attempt to not-wound.

love is forgetting betrayed.


slow, fragile, stretching


a person cannot decide to stop longing


connection is human being.








These Ghosts I Walk With

Tue, 2007-01-09 01:51 — billy
Teaser: 
I do not want them to stay and I want to write them letters, to call them in the middle of the night, to fall into their arms. These ghosts that walk with me, they are also me.
Body: 
These ghosts I walk with, they tap me on the shoulder with a whisper, they slap me upside the head. Walking faster does not shake them. Even when I permit myself to run, they follow. I do not want them to stay and I want to write them letters, to call them in the middle of the night, to fall into their arms. These ghosts that walk with me, they are also me.

**

I feel like I must be really lost. I can’t remember where my solid ground might be.

I tried to love a woman once. We tried to build a life together. We broke each other’s heart, and then spent years ripping apart whatever remained holding us together. I felt like I had to claw my way out. Still, I fell back into her embrace with a reckless passion like nothing else. Not just once, but again and again, I threw all of myself into devouring her, being devoured by her. She told me she could use her body to heal me, her, us. In reality, ours was a mournful, desperate cry, a mutual and inescapable howling. I wanted it more than any other thing, and I wanted more when I was done.

**

I told myself that I had finally learned how to love one person – and just one person – deeply, reliably. I had tricked myself for so long that only a short success was necessary, that I was started to believe in the potential of long-term results. In short, I have walled off portions of myself, attempting to leave a portion intact that is worthy of respect. I asked her to facilitate my frailty, and how could she have complied?

It has taken me a long time to register just how deeply I was crushed by our failure to maintain a certain level of cohesion, passion. I still have not said how much I mourn the passing of our fluid, fluent desire. We fall into each other like well-rehearsed characters, sometimes even pulling off our parts, but something has died. And rather than allow the death to stink up everything, I have let it rot within those parts of myself that survived the walling, and there is little room left to be respectable.

**

For all my attempts to cajole myself into adulthood, I still love like a child. Privately, I laugh haughtily at the adults and persist in my boycott of manhood. To your face, I am trying to learn how to be reliable, decent, strong. Each night before I sleep, I am flooded with a desperate longing for connection. What would it be to hug every woman I’ve ever felt drawn to? What if I did make love a thousand times, with a hundred different women?

I hurl scorn at my old lover for bringing a man into her bed every night; but what else should she do? Who should hold her the way she needs to be held? Don’t I simply wish that it would be my hands wrapped around her naked skin? And don’t I get to be held, too? Is it ok to demand such a thing?

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