Friday, August 01, 2014, Buttes-Chaumont Parc, Paris, France.



Why do I need feminism? We all have our reasons. We all have our stories. Let me tell you about my day:



I was sitting on a hill in the grass at Buttes-Chaumont park, a lovely historical area in Paris. I wanted to be relatively by myself so I could write in peace and smoke without drawing attention to myself. I’m sitting, book in my lap, a pen and cig between my fingers, when I am approached by a man. My main concern was determining whether or not he was the po-lice, but he had no characteristics of cops. He appeared emotionally stable and had good hygiene so I wasn’t too uncertain, (isn’t it kind of bad how we judge people on that stuff?), still, I wondered what he wanted, dreading having to talk to someone when I was merely trying to write in peace. I figured he was going to ask me for something to smoke.



He didn’t. Instead, he asked if he could sit by me. I look around and scan all the other vacant spaces he could sit instead, making it obvious that there was plenty of room to sit instead of right the **** next to me. It’s a pretty big park. “Si ca ta derange pas?” I wasn’t planning on staying long anyway, but I knew he wouldn’t be dangerous as there were many families and couples and runners and walkers, old friends and young kids playing. I felt safe enough, and he seemed harmless. I figured if anything, I could practice my French, which was always nice.



I said okay. He sat, and for a moment we sat in silence. I made myself a sandwich with baguette and cheese and offered him some. He politely declined. We started talking.



I asked if he was Parisian, and he told me he lived there for a while but was from Afrique. I didn’t catch which country, but I don’t think he specified which region. He asked about me, and I told him I was American, born in DC, but I came to France every so often and it was my first language. We talked about travel. We talked about the chaos in the Middle East, and how it was prophesized in scripture. He told me he was Muslim. I told him I wasn’t religious.



I told him I acknowledged the importance of texts, but I believe our ability to think has evolved in 2000 years and we have more information now than we did then. I told him there was too much life and I could not fit it all into one magic being which sprinkled glitter and said “Let there be” and we were created. I told him I really liked the Asian philosophies of Buddhism and Daoism. We talked about peace. We talked about Human Rights and the beauty of diversity, and how marvelous it was people could live among another in peace.



I said it was cool, and I even said it was cool that even as a black man in Europe and an Arab-American woman, we could talk freely without hostility and social division. We talked about closed-mindedness and Conservativism. I explained cognitive dissonance contributing to conflict, generated by opposing views and resistance/reluctance to consider new ideas. We talked about Psychology. I told him I was a writer and I told him about Cabaret Populaire in Belleville and the poetry community in Paris. I told him I love Paris. We talked again about travel.



He told me he was in Germany last weekend, and I told him I was in Langen Tuesday night. He told me he always wanted to go to the U.S.A. We talked about immigration. We talked about the American Dream. We talked about money. I told him I was proposed to the last time I was in Lebanon. We talked about reasons people marry. I reminded him today was the first of August, which meant I’d been with my boyfriend for two months. We talked about love. We talked about monogamy, polyamory and infidelity. We talked about Islam. We talked about racism.



We were sitting there talking for an hour or so, which I was especially grateful for, because besides having an interesting conversation I was able to speak in French for all of it, as he did not speak English (apparently he spoke German, though). I stood up to leave and told him “Enchanté,” but before I started walking off he motioned for me to look at his phone. I was wondering if he was trying to add me on Facebook or follow me on Instagram or something, but I am instead confronted by a picture on his screen of him laying on his back on a bed, with an ***** ***** as the focal point.



Furious, I asked him “Pourquoi tu ma montre ca?! J’ai pas demande a voir ca!”



The stupid smile on his face disappeared and was replaced by a look of slight hurt, confusion, and surprise.

“Bordelle! C’est dommage—mais c’est ca—des hommes et femmes ne peuvent pas parler normalment, vraiment!”



And for the vile words I wanted to spout, I scoffed instead, too much of a lady to shout or get emotional, but I made sure to call him out and stand my ground, exuding negative energy and making it clear with my few words that that was not okay.



I gave no impression of interest in seeing his ****, so why did he do that? Even if he thought I might want to (hell never) he should have heard me ask or vocally say “yes, you can do that.” However, I did not ask; there were no prompts, hints, innuendos or even suggestive, flirty phrasing that would serve as an indication of ****** interest on my behalf.



I don’t want to be cynical and assume all guys are perverts and avoid any conversation because I’m not a rude person (generally). I’m not sexist. I value conversations and friendships with people without emphasis of gender importance. I try not to assume that everyone is sketchy or has ****** up motives. Some people just want to talk.



I wasn’t going to blatantly ignore or dismiss him because he was a man, nor because he was black, foreign, or Muslim. But where the hell is he from that he was socialized and thought that was appropriate or wanted?

I did not ask. The worst part is that he seemed like a genuinely alright person, but then he had to ruin it by whipping out a **** pic. Gross. What’s even more gross is the sense of entitlement he had, thinking it was acceptable to do that. You are a stranger. And I don’t want to see your ******, you disgusting *******.



I really don’t like assuming **** about people or making generalizations. I’m not going to assimilate one ****** with every group they are assigned to and stereotype against every person of that respective group. But fuckkkk. It’s annoying and disappointing that what I thought was a pleasant talk and exchange of ideas with a friendly stranger was actually a plot to show me his ****. ****.



The moral of this story is to say why feminism is needed, because this happens to people every day. If you still need further assistance understanding, please allow me to elaborate:



1)      I need feminism because it allows me to stand up for myself and feel confident about stating that I’m uncomfortable with unwanted behaviors and I’m not going to tolerate them.



These behaviors include, but are not limited to:



1)      Showing me **** pics

2)      Assuming it’s okay to show a girl you met not even an hour ago a **** pic (Do not even say it’s because of a culture difference, because I know of Frenchies who don’t do that)

3)      Approaching me because I’m sitting alone (I accepted that because I assumed he wasn’t going to violate my mind like that (good thing I don’t have photographic memory) but I didn’t wave over and say “Hey, you look friendly! Come over and talk to me!”)

4)      Asking me how serious things are with my boyfriend

5)      Asking me about my bisexuality—only to invalidate it

6)      Assigning me behavior expectations because of my gender

7)      Trying to control the way I do or do not reproduce

8)      Expecting me to behave a certain way because of my sexuality

9)      Judging me based on my sexuality

10)  Openly discriminating against people and expecting me to be okay with prejudice

11)  Using racist terms… because you’re a racist

12)  Dehumanizing the oppressed





Because I don’t know what you studied about it (wait—most people who disagree with feminism haven’t and are completely misinformed) but:



Feminism is about equality, and it doesn’t feel very equal when I show someone respect but I get no respect in return. And if you associate feminism with fauxminism and misandry, please educate yourself. (If I had Tumblr still, you better believe I would’ve already posted this). To quote the great words of Jay in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back: "Remember, don’t whip your **** out unless she asks."

Two billion years ago
the river we call Colorado
opened a **** in the Kaibab Plateau

sculpting sandstone, granite, and limestone spectra
on the rugged canyon walls -
reflecting the seering Arizona sun.

Millennial torrents scoured the surface.
Juniper and Aspen, torn from the expanding banks,
****** into the river's red-stained vortex.

All the while the restless Colorado,
obedient to gravity's law,
scoured its bed a mile below the rim.
The last dinosaur perished - choked by volcanic soot.

Pangaea rumbled, groaned and split
and an eye-blink ago our African parents
stood to take their first faltering steps.

Their progeny crossed the Bering bridge
roaming south to build stone shelters
tucked against these canyon walls.

Did the Havasupai huddle in fright
of the jagged firelight searing the skies -
pounding the air across the hollows?

And emerging at storm’s end
did they gaze at the rainbow mist
spread over the buttes and valleys?

After dusk, with fires withering to embers,
did they rest supine,
heads pillowed on their arms,
pondering the jewel case universe above?

*November, 2006

In the long journey out of the self,
There are many detours, washed-out interrupted raw places
Where the shale slides dangerously
And the back wheels hang almost over the edge
At the sudden veering, the moment of turning.
Better to hug close, wary of rubble and falling stones.
The arroyo cracking the road, the wind-bitten buttes, the canyons,
Creeks swollen in midsummer from the flash-flood roaring into the narrow valley.
Reeds beaten flat by wind and rain,
Grey from the long winter, burnt at the base in late summer.
-- Or the path narrowing,
Winding upward toward the stream with its sharp stones,
The upland of alder and birchtrees,
Through the swamp alive with quicksand,
The way blocked at last by a fallen fir-tree,
The thickets darkening,
The ravines ugly.

The Walk

I got red clay and grass on my feet today in the land of the Navaho it seemed I channeled one of their
Braves it seemed my eyes grew stronger the buttes and mesas the southwest had on familiar adoring that
flows with a fluidity in the driest land yet still the streaming it breaks free and flows down to the
Valley then it arrests the high distant peaks like your eyes become the bow shooting at the target straight
And true with speed it passes stationary objects it brings them to intensified life they are passed in a whirl
No longer are they so fixed as they were nothing now they enliven my heart it beats faster with the joy they
Possess magic it lies in depths of tree and scrub it appears as a wild and crazed painter of the caliber of
Van Gogh started at a certain point definitely he favored red as his base color then with differing shades
Of green he cloaked this thermal world it would be uniquely different a somber invitation to a feast at first
Glance seemingly a hard pronounced edge but a people with dark red to brown skin walked into this
World they put the finish to perfect with indigo as their primary color of dress what living moods now
Stand out against the red terrain singularly or as a tribe they clashed with this scenic land earth and sky
Had a joining place among a people that were formable there power they were educated not by
Scholarly universities but by rock streams trees and from creatures that learned to survive in a hostile
Environment it’s interesting to note that one of our most robust presidents an easterner when his wife
And mother died within days of one another Teddy Roosevelt chose the west as the place to seek
Healing for his devastated life the rest of his life is a pretty good testament to this place and it’s curative
Powers not bad for a rocky dry land thought by most to be worthless just an observation of one whom
Walked in the paths of a rich diverse and proud people I think my Cherokee grandmother would be
Proud she always talked about where we would go she took a detour and went to heaven instead in the
Meantime I will do the earth side adventures for the both of us

L'heure verte

The mountains. The heaps of their bountiful gravels, and earth, and soil, large oversized masses of half-frozen water teetering on the precipice of subzero masculine *******. Francophilic cleavage jetting out of this deserted white pastoral dressing. The inaugural bawl, wanton fixations of putting the imperialist foot on every spot of tree, each and every shrub, until the limbs' cast reaches each dimple that foliage braves, where that blue eagle of patriotism dredges its claws to form every river, rill, estuary, creek, channel, flume, littoral, and waterway where the iron-rich gullies once brimmed in the interamnian basins, rich crimsony waters riffling through fruitful and extravagant aquifers. Beyond that, where an inexplicably feral wind rips vines from their dendritic housings, where barely an eye can see, this place of exsanguination and abysmal phytocide.

At the end of this lamentable torture, only a desert of human interest remains. There is no reason to laugh, or smile, or cheer, or put a leg up, to call on a friend, or to have ice cream. There will be no more ice cream. There is only the loathsome incredulousness and avarice in the semblances and familiarity of those with whom we thought we once knew. Little can ever be known, for there is much to gain in the absence of knowledge, and even greater that can be acquired in the alms of wisdom through patient examination and thorough silence. Here on the buttes and cornices, the thwacking gavels of evil power deities throw down their lust for more and soon become adjoined to these grand discrepancies greed mistakenly loses to a lack of awareness and to self-aggrandizement.

Power is the weapon of inexperienced wielders. Passion is the immortal frequency that is worn by artisans and artists, poets and painters, it is the business of quietness to learnedly evolve to protect our tomorrows from personal needs, but to instead preserve the integral parts of society. The words of languages, artifacts, and cultures, rather than the skeletons of ****** and the deeds of possession. Each who sleeps knows their bedfellows to equally be at peace. For no wealth can exceed that of comfortable pillows, soft quilts, and sheets. We are all the same while we sleep.

Hidden Secrets                                                    

With a large handful of dry grass that he made smolder he blew into it the smoke it shot out two feet into the air with that single act he created such an effect of mystery and wonder instantly it produced

the Whole panorama that exist in the southwest’s lore and legend to walk on boulders as large as buildings their Shadows first hold the power of life and death in the deadly heat they are a sanctuary I

Guess when
Your ****** into that proximity of life and death you truly pass through an uncommon door way there is
No way this doesn’t cause a convergence with strange and brooding realities in that brief moment of life

Just as the smoke died it truly joined the other dead ones as spirit and ghost it drifted into hidden corridors that is not restricted or governed by normal circumstances though the smoke now invisible

At a short distance on a slight rise there stood a native spirit and the stranger who appeared had the Dress of the people of ancient Cathay how appropriate that the mysterious orient would solidify an

Alliance with a people as colorful as themselves and who share close similarities one uses fire in a cruder Sense that fits their purposes ideally where the other uses incense to produce a sophisticated smoke the

Flowing silk curtains create mood and it evokes contemplation just as effective as the natural landscape of mesas, buttes, arroyos, stand and gaze into these and other formations and the mind feeds on the

Hidden truths that are brushed into them by the creator with earth tone paints lay aside the ridged and the formable be touched by the motion of the clouds the world is alive you’re not just a spectator you

Are the main participants in the grand mixture of outward beauty that arrests the soul that is uneven and not fully shaped the sweep of vistas that hold deep harsh marvels are not cruel but they are as one

whom works a doe skin to its white perfection it will be your wedding robe when you marry the conscious and the sublime spirit night and day are unique to earth you are honored to coexist

in the terrestrial with a longing that is making you fit for the celestial it comes in many teachable means
as varied and as delightfully sacred as he who with words alone spoke it all into existence all places and

Cultures have this under writing theme some more pronounced than others they are given to thrill and
Intrigue and they show a picturesque puzzle some of it is riveting in other places common this sets it off

The catching of the eye then followed by passion’s swells the speed accelerates then slows all to create a home that is only temporal but love flows through it the same as the rivers deep and wide they give

Cause for celebration another would have figured why go to all the bother when it will all end that Thought is foreign and abhorrent only the best will do we should do the same and give Him our best

If I ever have children
I’ll teach them about god
On
Family road trips
In a mini-van
With a candy wrapper carpet
And warm melted crayons
In the seats grand canyons
As the Arizona sun sets
Over the Copper State
Where you could almost swear
It was the red dusted desert
Painting the sky
Rain-less-bows of color
With broken butte brush stroke
Across the restless desert
As you twist around in your seat-belted
Body of eight years old
To the rearview window
Of an AC blasted
Softly singing stereo
Escaping out gaping windows
Leaving nothing behind
But a heatwave
Trying to settle down
Tire teased dust
For the evening stretch ahead
That you think might never end
As if god was using the road as a string
He had tied tightly to the family car
Carving the way though
Salty cactuses drinking licks of sand left by
Dirt devils dancing across the graves of
Lizards
Who pretended they didn't exist
But couldn’t fool the hawks
Who watched and waited
For more than just a lost tail
Or a forgotten story
But something clay
Concretely carved in to caves and caverns
With rock and bone
Something solid to hold on to

But my children need to know
That an existence is a slippery thing

Like the color from the buttes
As it slowly drips off the sky
And back into the sand
Leaving speckles of white
Freckling the blackness
Swirled with little
Tizzles of light
As homage to the desert moon
Whose crying stars for
Coyotes
Howling in time
To the crickets metronomic harmonies  
Singing the desert back from its camouflage
Life bursting breath though
The earth cast shadows
Breathing heart beats across the land
That's just been
Brought back to living

And if I ever have children
I'll teach them
That this road will never end
At least not where we expect it to
Because god
Isn’t who
We make him to be
He
Doesn’t string us along a road
But he holds the world on a string



                                                       ­   The End.

Marchands de grec ! marchands de latin ! cuistres ! dogues !
Philistins ! magisters ! je vous hais, pédagogues !
Car, dans votre aplomb grave, infaillible, hébété,
Vous niez l'idéal, la grâce et la beauté !
Car vos textes, vos lois, vos règles sont fossiles !
Car, avec l'air profond, vous êtes imbéciles !
Car vous enseignez tout, et vous ignorez tout !
Car vous êtes mauvais et méchants ! - Mon sang bout
Rien qu'à songer au temps où, rêveuse bourrique,
Grand diable de seize ans, j'étais en rhétorique !
Que d'ennuis ! de fureurs ! de bêtises ! - gredins ! -
Que de froids châtiments et que de chocs soudains !
« Dimanche en retenue et cinq cents vers d'Horace ! »
Je regardais le monstre aux ongles noirs de crasse,
Et je balbutiais : « Monsieur... - Pas de raisons !
- Vingt fois l'ode à Plancus et l'épître aux Pisons ! »
Or j'avais justement, ce jour là, - douce idée.
Qui me faisait rêver d'Armide et d'Haydée, -
Un rendez-vous avec la fille du portier.
Grand Dieu ! perdre un tel jour ! le perdre tout entier !
Je devais, en parlant d'amour, extase pure !
En l'enivrant avec le ciel et la nature,
La mener, si le temps n'était pas trop mauvais,
Manger de la galette aux buttes Saint-Gervais !
Rêve heureux ! je voyais, dans ma colère bleue,
Tout cet Éden, congé, les lilas, la banlieue,
Et j'entendais, parmi le thym et le muguet,
Les vagues violons de la mère Saguet !
Ô douleur ! furieux, je montais à ma chambre,
Fournaise au mois de juin, et glacière en décembre ;
Et, là, je m'écriais :

« Horace ! ô bon garçon !
Qui vivais dans le calme et selon la raison,
Et qui t'allais poser, dans ta sagesse franche,
Sur tout, comme l'oiseau se pose sur la branche,
Sans peser, sans rester, ne demandant aux dieux
Que le temps de chanter ton chant libre et joyeux !
Tu marchais, écoutant le soir, sous les charmilles,
Les rires étouffés des folles jeunes filles,
Les doux chuchotements dans l'angle obscur du bois ;
Tu courtisais ta belle esclave quelquefois,
Myrtale aux blonds cheveux, qui s'irrite et se cabre
Comme la mer creusant les golfes de Calabre,
Ou bien tu t'accoudais à table, buvant sec
Ton vin que tu mettais toi-même en un *** grec.
Pégase te soufflait des vers de sa narine ;
Tu songeais ; tu faisais des odes à Barine,
À Mécène, à Virgile, à ton champ de Tibur,
À Chloë, qui passait le long de ton vieux mur,
Portant sur son beau front l'amphore délicate.
La nuit, lorsque Phœbé devient la sombre Hécate,
Les halliers s'emplissaient pour toi de visions ;
Tu voyais des lueurs, des formes, des rayons,
Cerbère se frotter, la queue entre les jambes,
À Bacchus, dieu des vins et père des ïambes ;
Silène digérer dans sa grotte, pensif ;
Et se glisser dans l'ombre, et s'enivrer, lascif,
Aux blanches nudités des nymphes peu vêtues,
La faune aux pieds de chèvre, aux oreilles pointues !
Horace, quand grisé d'un petit vin sabin,
Tu surprenais Glycère ou Lycoris au bain,
Qui t'eût dit, ô Flaccus ! quand tu peignais à Rome
Les jeunes chevaliers courant dans l'hippodrome,
Comme Molière a peint en France les marquis,
Que tu faisais ces vers charmants, profonds, exquis,
Pour servir, dans le siècle odieux où nous sommes,
D'instruments de torture à d'horribles bonshommes,
Mal peignés, mal vêtus, qui mâchent, lourds pédants,
Comme un singe une fleur, ton nom entre leurs dents !
Grimauds hideux qui n'ont, tant leur tête est vidée,
Jamais eu de maîtresse et jamais eu d'idée ! »

Puis j'ajoutais, farouche :

« Ô cancres ! qui mettez
Une soutane aux dieux de l'éther irrités,
Un béguin à Diane, et qui de vos tricornes
Coiffez sinistrement les olympiens mornes,
Eunuques, tourmenteurs, crétins, soyez maudits !
Car vous êtes les vieux, les noirs, les engourdis,
Car vous êtes l'hiver ; car vous êtes, ô cruches !
L'ours qui va dans les bois cherchant un arbre à ruches,
L'ombre, le plomb, la mort, la tombe, le néant !
Nul ne vit près de vous dressé sur son séant ;
Et vous pétrifiez d'une haleine sordide
Le jeune homme naïf, étincelant, splendide ;
Et vous vous approchez de l'aurore, endormeurs !
À Pindare serein plein d'épiques rumeurs,
À Sophocle, à Térence, à Plaute, à l'ambroisie,
Ô traîtres, vous mêlez l'antique hypocrisie,
Vos ténèbres, vos mœurs, vos jougs, vos exeats,
Et l'assoupissement des noirs couvents béats ;
Vos coups d'ongle rayant tous les sublimes livres,
Vos préjugés qui font vos yeux de brouillards ivres,
L'horreur de l'avenir, la haine du progrès ;
Et vous faites, sans peur, sans pitié, sans regrets,
À la jeunesse, aux cœurs vierges, à l'espérance,
Boire dans votre nuit ce vieil ***** rance !
Ô fermoirs de la bible humaine ! sacristains
De l'art, de la science, et des maîtres lointains,
Et de la vérité que l'homme aux cieux épèle,
Vous changez ce grand temple en petite chapelle !
Guichetiers de l'esprit, faquins dont le goût sûr
Mène en laisse le beau ; porte-clefs de l'azur,
Vous prenez Théocrite, Eschyle aux sacrés voiles,
Tibulle plein d'amour, Virgile plein d'étoiles ;
Vous faites de l'enfer avec ces paradis ! »

Et ma rage croissant, je reprenais :

« Maudits,
Ces monastères sourds ! bouges ! prisons haïes !
Oh ! comme on fit jadis au pédant de Veïes,
Culotte bas, vieux tigre ! Écoliers ! écoliers !
Accourez par essaims, par bandes, par milliers,
Du gamin de Paris au groeculus de Rome,
Et coupez du bois vert, et fouaillez-moi cet homme !
Jeunes bouches, mordez le metteur de bâillons !
Le mannequin sur qui l'on drape des haillons
À tout autant d'esprit que ce cuistre en son antre,
Et tout autant de cœur ; et l'un a dans le ventre
Du latin et du grec comme l'autre à du foin.
Ah ! je prends Phyllodoce et Xantis à témoin
Que je suis amoureux de leurs claires tuniques ;
Mais je hais l'affreux tas des vils pédants iniques !
Confier un enfant, je vous demande un peu,
À tous ces êtres noirs ! autant mettre, morbleu !
La mouche en pension chez une tarentule !
Ces moines, expliquer Platon, lire Catulle,
Tacite racontant le grand Agricola,
Lucrèce ! eux, déchiffrer Homère, ces gens-là !
Ces diacres ! ces bedeaux dont le groin renifle !
Crânes d'où sort la nuit, pattes d'où sort la gifle,
Vieux dadais à l'air rogue, au sourcil triomphant,
Qui ne savent pas même épeler un enfant !
Ils ignorent comment l'âme naît et veut croître.
Cela vous a Laharpe et Nonotte pour cloître !
Ils en sont à l'A, B, C, D, du cœur humain ;  
Ils sont l'horrible Hier qui veut tuer Demain ;
Ils offrent à l'aiglon leurs règles d'écrevisses.
Et puis ces noirs tessons ont une odeur de vices.
Ô vieux pots égueulés des soifs qu'on ne dit pas !
Le pluriel met une S à leurs meâs culpâs,
Les boucs mystérieux, en les voyants s'indignent,
Et, quand on dit : « Amour !  » terre et cieux ! ils se signent.
Leur vieux viscère mort insulte au cœur naissant.
Ils le prennent de haut avec l'adolescent,
Et ne tolèrent pas le jour entrant dans l'âme
Sous la forme pensée ou sous la forme femme.
Quand la muse apparaît, ces hurleurs de holà
Disent : « Qu'est-ce que c'est que cette folle-là ? »
Et, devant ses beautés, de ses rayons accrues,
Ils reprennent : « Couleurs dures, nuances crues ;
Vapeurs, illusions, rêves ; et quel travers
Avez-vous de fourrer l'arc-en-ciel dans vos vers ? »
Ils raillent les enfants, ils raillent les poètes ;
Ils font aux rossignols leurs gros yeux de chouettes :
L'enfant est l'ignorant, ils sont l'ignorantin ;
Ils raturent l'esprit, la splendeur, le matin ;
Ils sarclent l'idéal ainsi qu'un barbarisme,
Et ces culs de bouteille ont le dédain du prisme. »

Ainsi l'on m'entendait dans ma geôle crier.

Le monologue avait le temps de varier.
Et je m'exaspérais, faisant la faute énorme,
Ayant raison au fond, d'avoir tort dans la forme.
Après l'abbé Tuet, je maudissais Bezout ;
Car, outre les pensums où l'esprit se dissout,
J'étais alors en proie à la mathématique.
Temps sombre ! Enfant ému du frisson poétique,
Pauvre oiseau qui heurtais du crâne mes barreaux,
On me livrait tout vif aux chiffres, noirs bourreaux ;
On me faisait de force ingurgiter l'algèbre ;
On me liait au fond d'un Boisbertrand funèbre ;
On me tordait, depuis les ailes jusqu'au bec,
Sur l'affreux chevalet des X et des Y ;
Hélas ! on me fourrait sous les os maxillaires
Le théorème orné de tous ses corollaires ;
Et je me débattais, lugubre patient
Du diviseur prêtant main-forte au quotient.
De là mes cris.

Un jour, quand l'homme sera sage,
Lorsqu'on n'instruira plus les oiseaux par la cage,
Quand les sociétés difformes sentiront
Dans l'enfant mieux compris se redresser leur front,
Que, des libres essors ayant sondé les règles,
On connaîtra la loi de croissance des aigles,
Et que le plein midi rayonnera pour tous,
Savoir étant sublime, apprendre sera doux.
Alors, tout en laissant au sommet des études
Les grands livres latins et grecs, ces solitudes
Où l'éclair gronde, où luit la mer, où l'astre rit,
Et qu'emplissent les vents immenses de l'esprit,
C'est en les pénétrant d'explication tendre,
En les faisant aimer, qu'on les fera comprendre.
Homère emportera dans son vaste reflux
L'écolier ébloui ; l'enfant ne sera plus
Une bête de somme attelée à Virgile ;
Et l'on ne verra plus ce vif esprit agile
Devenir, sous le fouet d'un cuistre ou d'un abbé,
Le lourd cheval poussif du pensum embourbé.
Chaque village aura, dans un temple rustique,
Dans la lumière, au lieu du magister antique,
Trop noir pour que jamais le jour y pénétrât,
L'instituteur lucide et grave, magistrat
Du progrès, médecin de l'ignorance, et prêtre
De l'idée ; et dans l'ombre on verra disparaître
L'éternel écolier et l'éternel pédant.
L'aube vient en chantant, et non pas en grondant.
Nos fils riront de nous dans cette blanche sphère ;
Ils se demanderont ce que nous pouvions faire
Enseigner au moineau par le hibou hagard.
Alors, le jeune esprit et le jeune regard
Se lèveront avec une clarté sereine
Vers la science auguste, aimable et souveraine ;
Alors, plus de grimoire obscur, fade, étouffant ;
Le maître, doux apôtre incliné sur l'enfant,
Fera, lui versant Dieu, l'azur et l'harmonie,
Boire la petite âme à la coupe infinie.
Alors, tout sera vrai, lois, dogmes, droits, devoirs.
Tu laisseras passer dans tes jambages noirs
Une pure lueur, de jour en jour moins sombre,
Ô nature, alphabet des grandes lettres d'ombre !

Paris, mai 1831.

The light of a new day just started tumbling over the horizon.  A slight southerly breeze salutes the silhouetted trees.  I make my way quietly out of the house to meet an old friend. His excited ding ding ding welcomes me as I open the door.  We have made this journey many times before, and we both know this is the last.  

The road is a curious thing.  Born out of need, and more importantly, ingenuity.  She calls from the edge of darkness.  An insatiable siren that has beckoned, and not been resisted by, restless sojourners.  As I make my way onto the interstate I hear her song clearly.

The jewels of the road are in your heart.  The path is the same no matter who you are.  Let your soul turn the wheel of fate.  You'll soon arrive safely at heavens hate.

Miles and miles of fields and barns.  Rusted out windmills guard the ghosts of yesterday. An occasional whiff of soon to be bacon burns my nostrils.   I have 20 hours of bliss ahead of me.  My friend quietly hums as children with hopeful faces silently wave.

The oft overlooked Missouri River separates me from my first border.  My heart races.  I feel like a conquering hero with the blood of a dragon on my sword.

The prepubescent flatness of the land continues.  I've entered the land of the Big Red.  Flags, helmets, and banners adorn every house. A religion that would only work in a desolate land full empty people.  

A blue sign points towards rest and the promise of snacks.  I am greeted by the weary.  Bags under their eyes and children clinging to their legs.  We nod at each other with a certain understanding.  I splash icy water on my face, possibly refreshed for a moment, and head to Vend O' World.  For a measles sum the envy of the culinary world awaits my deft touch.  B2 it is.  My fate is sealed.

Welcome to Colorful Colorado. On a brown sign nonetheless.  Only a few hours until I race among the lifelines of the giants. Cattle chew thoughtlessly beneath the blazing sun.  Death is all over the interstate.  Guts, brains, and gore.  Ain't progress grand?  

The illuminated hat promises thin sliced beef. The saliva flows like a unimpeded river.  A muffled voice greets me with the rehearsed verse of an untrustworthy worker.  I grab the bag greedily, almost dropping it on account of the grease.  Ahhhh that really hit the spot.  Donde esta el bano?

I'm driving through the sky.
I knew that I could fly.
But I think I'm going to cry
Because that curve up ahead
Is filling me with great dread
If I falter then I'll be quite dead.

I stop for a moment to take in the celestial view.  I may grab some of those pearls for my future wife. The air is so piny pure. I'm reinvigorated but need some rest.  

There is frost on the windshield.  I scrape it off with a frisbee I find in the trunk.  I turtle my way down the mountain. The scene changes quite suddenly and I enter the desert as I cross state lines.

A calming peace sweeps over my body.  I am at one with the landscape and she is one with me.  Together we dance slowly.  A great vastness of nothing. A solitary land with no visible life but yet teeming with creation. Tears slowly fill my eyes.  True love at least.  Will it be reciprocated?  Only time will tell.

The purple of the night surrounds me as I enter the gorge.  Imposing buttes and mountain curves keep my knuckles white. A clearing awaits with sad trailers, forming a community, standing in the desert.  But maybe I misjudged. A bonfire of sorts shows the dancing of some sort of festival.

I come up over a ridge and a magnificent sights unfolds.  The glittering gold of hope.  An oasis for the degenerate addict.  I press on the gas as adrenaline fills my being.  It's time to make my mark on this world.  Like a lamb to slaughter I squeal and turn into the city.

Day #8: Cortez Colorado To ‘The Grand Canyon’

Thoughts of Monument Valley, Mexican Hat, and the Grand Canyon consumed my morning, as I quickly repacked the bike to get back to my ride.  It had rained during the night, and the windshield of the bike was dotted with the dried residue of raindrops. Not enough to be bothersome, but just visible enough so I knew they were there. The pattern they made across the large plexiglass shield told a story of what had happened during the night while I was asleep.  

It was cool this morning, and the temperature on the bike’s dashboard registered only 53 degrees as I pulled out of the motel parking lot onto Rt.#160W. I purposely avoided any breakfast and thought only about the delicious frybread at the 4-Corners National Monument. 4-Corners was where Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico all met in perfect symmetry, and at its southern end was a rickety old trailer run by a Navajo family that served some of the best frybread between Phoenix and Durango.

To my great disappointment, the frybread trailer was still closed when I arrived at 4-Corners.  The jewelry stands were all open and staffed, and the stone parking lot was full, but the old trailer that advertised Navajo Frybread, located in the extreme southwest corner of the memorial, was still dark and empty inside. I asked the friendly Navajo lady in the jewelry stand, to the right of the trailer, what time she thought they would reopen.  She said: “It was always hard to tell, because they never showed up on time.  They should have opened over a half hour ago, but they couldn’t be counted on to keep to a set schedule.” With that, she shook her head in disgust and said something in Navajo that I didn’t understand.  Trust me — it wasn’t good.  

It was now past 9:30 in the morning, and my stomach had started to growl.  I thanked her for the information and asked her what spot on the radio dial the Navajo Station was coming in on this far from Kayenta.  Her name was Rosita, and she told me it was coming in clearly at 6:60 on the a.m. dial.

What was it with multiple sixes in this part of the west?  The infamous highway now called Rt. #491 used to be labeled Rt.#666.  The locals referred to it as the ‘Devils Highway.’  It got so much bad press that the route number was eventually changed. There was even a Hollywood movie (Natural Born Killers) filmed along its route.  At least this radio station had only two sixes, but still the connection was strange, and it made me wonder again about the choice of location. Maybe there was no choice, and 6:60 was the only spot available on the dial for the Navajo Station, or maybe it was something more …  

I wanted to believe it was just co-incidence as I headed back to the bike. On my way to the parking lot, I noticed that the monument had changed, and so had my opinion of it.  The Memorial itself was fine, but the four rows of shops that surrounded it — forming a perfect square with the flagpole in the center — were much different than before.  

Instead of the old rustic wooden stands that used to form the rows, the shops were now a modern masonry (sandstone and adobe) and all connected with one no different from the other.  They looked like rejects from an out of work architect’s bad dream. My connection to the Navajo Nation used to be strong here, but today I felt nothing more than a nagging anxiety to get going, and for the first time ever I had no desire to return.  

I headed west on Rt.#160 and turned right onto Rt.#191 north until it connected with Rt.# 163 in Bluff Utah. This would take me through Monument Valley and then back in a southerly direction to the Navajo town of Kayenta Arizona. In many ways, the Navajo Nation was frozen in its own time warp. It observed daylight savings time, while the rest of Arizona did not, which always caused me to smile when coming through here in the summer and looking at my watch. This truly was a nation, with its own sense of time and place, and being a visitor was all I would ever be.

Being A Welcomed Visitor Would Always Be Good Enough For Me

The loop north, through Utah, was a longer way to go, but the road went right through the great Valley Of The Gods, and Mexican Hat, and was more than worth any amount of extra time.  As I made the right turn onto Rt.#191, I was visually assaulted with the vastness, and awestruck wonder, contained within the sand and rock of the American Southwest. It was unlike anyplace else, and I was reborn in its spirit every time I passed beneath the shadows of its ancient monuments.

I looked off to the west and remembered the first time I came through here back in the spring of 1971. I had had to stop repeatedly, as my spirit breathed in what my eyes wouldn’t accept.   It was on that day that I first realized that one of your senses could lie to you about what another one held dear as the truth.

Alone on the road, the miles were again my only companion, as the sand and the rock measured me for who and what I was.  Beneath their great shadows, I was but a transitory annoyance in the mega-millenia history of all that they knew.  Like the occasional fly or gnat that landed on my face shield, I was something only to be swatted away or ignored, with no real significance, and deserving of no serious thought.

As I passed unnoticed beneath their immortal grandeur, the changes they inspired, and the walls they tore down, would live forever inside my new insignificance. There was nothing symbiotic, or co-authored, about my place in this desert.  Monument Valley existed as it always had … welcoming, but with an unsettled message you had to measure yourself against.  In the beginning, I thought the message was coming from somewhere deep inside the towering Mesas and Buttes only to discover that it was coming from deep inside myself.

In what seemed like an instant, and without warning, Mexican Hat appeared off to my left.  Today it seemed bigger than before, and for that I am grateful.  Most things appeared smaller, when revisited, than they were in my memory, but this morning Mexican Hat was larger than ever before.  It was nestled against the horizon on the mesa’s edge, far enough away to ensure its own safety, but close enough to remind us of how small we really were.

I stopped the bike on the apron and took pictures while burying in the sand something of myself I never wanted back.  I brought small tokens of homage on these trips hoping to trade them for a deeper spirituality. What I left behind was only a tiny symbol of thanks for what they had already given me.  It felt good again to say thank you after having worshipped for so many years in their shadow. As I re-crossed the road, with my limitations offloaded, in the timelessness of the Valley’s eternal presence — I headed West.

In what others saw as only desert and rock, I saw as the exposed truth of a landscape beyond reform.  It welcomed me back while happily letting me go. It knew I was on the way to see my Spiritual Mother, and it also knew that the great hope chest of her arrival was created here.  

I got on the bike as the radio came back on.  I heard the Navajo commentator say the word Walmart, as the rhythm of her native words danced through the air.  Thank God there was still no native word for that modern symbol of consumerism that so much of our society had become slave to.

‘Lowest Prices Every Day, Lowest Expectations Inside Of Yourself’

The veneer of Native America masked the same problems shared by the rest of our country but with one major difference.  In trying to hang onto, and preserve, their own culture, they served to dignify their struggle.  Wasn’t a dignified struggle a definition of life itself? Without it, how could a life be truly lived? Without it, one is just being observed or marking time?  Marking time had become the catalyst, and the driving force, behind all cultural suicide and the one gift from the Industrial Revolution that we needed to give back.  It was where the spirits of the unfulfilled died from reasons unexplained, and all that was left behind was just excuse. The great illusion was that the machines had saved us from everything —everything but ourselves!

       Idle Time Was Its Undoing — A ‘Bad Day To Die’

I said goodbye to Mexican Hat as it disappeared over my left shoulder. I was again the only one on the road.  It was more evident to me than ever how fond I had become of this motorcycle during the past eight days. It did everything I asked of it, while doing it quietly, and was a reminder that I should be doing the same.  

Alone with my thoughts, the spirits of my ancestors — and their ancestors before them —crowded into my subconscious mind.  The word subconscious was an anglicized term for those places inside of us that never should have been divided. I bled for all the things in my life still left undone but hoped that by the end of this trip they would not remain unsaid.

The history of the Navajo people lay buried in the sand and would forever hold the spirit of the things they had taught me. As I waved to two Harley riders headed in the opposite direction, I wondered if they ever thought about how we got to this place.  Was it an accident or accidental fortune or something words would never know?  Ahead, I saw a sign warning of a sharp left turn in less than a quarter mile.  When I got closer, the image of the San Juan Trading Post rose like the Phoenix from the desert floor.  Sitting low and deep in a knoll by the river’s edge, it beckoned you to stop without telling you why.  

Why — was a question I had refused to deal with since leaving the motel. As I parked the bike in front of the Trading Post’s Café, the smell of something wonderful drifted through a window in the back.  In the back, and to the left, was where the kitchen was located. The smell was so overpowering that I was frozen in place, and I stood there in the bright sunlight taking in as much as I could.

          Why, Being The Question I Tried Most To Avoid

There was usually a reason for why most things happened even when not apparent. The closed Frybread stand at the 4-Corners Monument made more sense to me now.  Had I eaten there, I would have probably bypassed the Trading Post altogether.  All who have had the good fortune to stop there know that their Frybread is the very best. It’s served in the round, comes with powdered sugar, and is the size of a small pizza. I have always tweaked mine with maple syrup on top.

I asked Sam, the Café’s manager, and an old friend, if they still had the maple syrup that they kept hidden in the back.  He said, “Yes Kurt, you’ve been one of the few, if not the only one, that’s ever asked for it.  It may not have been out front since the last time you were here.”  I liked the thought of being the only one that enjoyed Frybread that way.  I thanked Sam again, but I also noticed something about him that seemed disturbing and strange.

Sam was limping with his left leg, dragging it is more apt, as he headed down the forty-foot-long corridor to the kitchen pantry for my syrup.  As he started back my way, I could tell from the look on his face that he was in a great deal of pain. Already knowing the answer, I asked Sam what was wrong.  He said: “I have an arthritic hip.”  At this I smiled, lightened up, and said: “Sam, I had my own left hip replaced just a few years ago.  It now feels like the real thing and allows me to do everything I like to do.”  This motorcycle trip of almost 5000 miles is no problem,” I told him, as he grimly smiled and looked away.

“How much did it cost?” he asked, as he cleared my table and walked back to the register.  With that, I grew sad because I did remember — and it was over $32,000. I did not tell him the cost hoping there was a health plan on the reservation that would allow him to get it done.  He looked at me again and said: “I’ve seen three doctors, and they’ve all said the same thing.”

They all told him that there was nothing more to be done, at that point, other than having it replaced. “I could have had it done in Phoenix or Tucson and been back on the reservation in three days, but the cost is what’s stopping me.” “I know Sam, I was in and out of the hospital myself in less time than that”… still not commenting on the price.

I left cash on the table as I paid my bill. Sam and I hugged one last time and he walked me outside to the bike. Before putting my helmet back on, we looked at each other once more in the eye.  He knew and appreciated that I understood what he was going through and that his pain would continue until his hip was replaced. It was more likely than not, and something I hated to admit to myself — that his pain would continue.

I asked him, as I was leaving, about any V.A. (Veterans Administration) options. He looked at me through very sad eyes and said: “They told me it was not degenerative enough for the V.A to transfer me to a private hospital, and they don’t perform that kind of operation here on the Rez.”

He had told me inside that he remembered the many years I had limped, and how badly he always felt when watching me leave.  The desk clerk at the adjoining motel actually mentioned me to him. She told him that a guy just left the Cafe on a motorcycle and was riding with his left leg completely down (straight) and not on the foot-peg.  He told her it was because I could not bend my left leg, and my only choice was to ride with it extended and straight down.  He also told her it was not a good option but better than the other alternative of not riding at all.

     So Many Times In Life We Have To Live Inside ‘Plan-B’

Sam looked seventy-five, but he was actually ten years younger than I was.  At fifty-two, he had far too many years of pain left to endure.  With all the money and resources wasted, and given away to countries that hated us, here was a crippled veteran of the United States Marine Corps who was in desperate need of real help. In my mind, no one could have deserved it more.  I watched Sam slowly limp back into the Café as I climbed the steep parking lot road back onto Rt. #163S.  

As I headed into the great Monument Valley, I thought about all the Native Americans who had served their country and were in dire need of health care. Within a 100-mile radius, I knew there were forgotten thousands suffering in pain.  Because of a broken health care system, and the apathy of an ungrateful nation, the only choice available to most of them was to quietly soldier on.

Their Pain And Suffering Continues Long After The Battles Have                                   Been Fought

As I headed east toward the Canyon, I thought about everything that had been so savagely torn away from them. Life on the reservation was challenging enough and the simple elements of life, that most of us take for granted, should not be denied to them.  I gave Sam my current cell number before I left and asked him to contact me in two weeks.  I was hoping that the great doctors who did my hip might be persuaded to take a pro-bono case like Sam’s. I told him that I would be more than willing to provide the airfare to Philadelphia and back — and he could stay with me. I wish I had had the resources to pay for the operation itself. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend money that, unfortunately, I didn’t have.

Sam promised he’d be in touch but in my heart, I didn’t believe him.  Native American dignity has always both inspired and confused me.  They bear life’s darker side with an acceptance that few of us could ever understand and even less endure.

                I Knew I Would Have To Call Him

The final thirty miles to Kayenta was a tribute to the great film director, John Ford, and his mastery in this valley. I felt his strong imagery call out to me with every bend in the road. His camera was magical, and he truly understood both the mystery, and the majesty, of these sacred lands. The time he spent here, and the stories he told, both changed and shaped our image of the American West forever. It was a romanticized image, yes, but one where the intrinsic beauty of the canyons and desert jumped right off the screen and into our imaginations. He lives inside of me now, as he lived inside me then.

A Five-Year-Old Boy Was Changed Forever By The Images Coming From The Small, Eleven Inch, Black And White T.V.

As the mesas and buttes became larger, my thoughts and feelings did the same. It was a shared epiphany of expansion as I crossed back over the Arizona line, but the sadness that I felt for Sam lingered inside. Even the towering imagery of the distant monuments had not chased it away. I remembered my own hip pain and could feel what he was suffering.  Before leaving them, I prayed to the God’s of this valley to enter my thoughts and force these dark clouds to leave — and to bless Sam with good fortune.  

It was mid-afternoon, as I entered Kayenta through its northern end. I was both thirsty and in need of gas.  As filling as the Frybread had been back at the San Juan Cafe, I was hungry again. After an egg salad sandwich and grape juice out of the cold chest at the Mobil Station, I felt much better. This quick stop would be enough to hold me over until I arrived at the Canyon later in the afternoon.

Kayenta put me back on Rt.#160S toward Tuba City where I would bear left onto Rt.#89 for the short trip down to Cameron. Rt.#89 was one of my two main roads of discovery, and it was always good to see it again — we knew each other so well. Cameron, the low-sitting town on the high desert’s floor, had served as a major trading post for Navajo artists and rug makers for over 100 years.  It was also the East Entrance to Grand Canyon National Park.

Motoring...
The road radiates.
Evaporates.
Orange Marmalade over
A sweet asphalt wafer.

Pure cane sandbeds.
Sedimentary candy canes.
Granulated sugar dunes.
In waves of Lemon Meringue

Suzie-Q tableau...
Caramel Mesas.
Chocolate Buttes.
Confectionary fantasia.

Butterscotch freshlets.
Cinnamon arroyos.
Flash floods churn the flavor.
Over and over.

A creamy sunset.
Horizon on the fly.
A scoop of Rainbow Sherbet
Melting in the sky.

The desert as a sugary delight.
The sweetest ever heard!
"But, it wasn't me." said the Desert..
"It was my evil twin, Dessert!

The hoofs and horses burn in the twilight,
As you count breaths between the stirring Of bees.
Oncoming traffic like a beads on a string,
The Woodworker's rasp,
The beekeeper's screen,
Diamond headlights,
Oncoming rain,
A transparent light,
The stirrings of leaves,
Gravity ground in a ceiling of sky.
In a dry place, the Oracle's
Lost meaning,
A hole in the center of the Sphinx blind eye.
I ply my hand to broken wheel moonlight,
A servitude of stars,
These muttering clouds,
A musty collection of shanties and shacks.
I caught the last sleep to black and white rails,
Slap boards passing, a flickering screen,
In a a theatre of stars and orbits,
A string hang on a ceiling so sweet.
As dogs and birds welcome Blue Heaven,
JESUS SAVES plasters Route 10, Is it West Mex or East Tex
Or is it the same?
Dark buttes, silhouettes, bare bulbs and bugs.
Ariels deep in dark desert valley,
The scent of box elder set in the sun.
The Oracle of day draws you in deeper,
Like a reptile burrowed in the heat of high noon.
A trial by fire, a light like no other,
What wildflowers lurk in the Devil's dark garden?
Witch grass and juniper smelling like rain.
A limestone Chateaux dreary long hours,
In a place surrounded by four walls and a bed,
Scavenging shoes in the dark of the day.
Black spiders in closets hunt along runnels,
A quivering fly caught in a trance.
A brief disconnection,
Ten thousand night and five Fridays ago,
So said the tombstone to each blade of grass.
Gravity Good Mother, teach us a lesson, tied to this tether,
This searing vibration,
A rust belt corrodes the American Dream,
As gulls wheel industrial blight.
Cherry Blue Jewel, the last drop of water,
Glass curtains cover the winnowing storm.
Twilight and half moons,
Long shiny autos,
All the starlets rise with the night.
Pieces and fragments, in abstract arrangement,
Aged black men fishing rivers of cattails.
Asleep in the dusk, a tinkling currant,
My own echo leaving a hollow in air.
Times emollient, 5 beads on a string,
Pharaohs and Pharisees,
A beekeeper's screen,
Shadows caught in a quivering dream.

1.

Dust devils swirl on the desert floor.
Saguaro cacti raise their arms
in praise or an invisible stick-up.
No gunman looms on the horizon.

My father drives us home
from California to Kansas
in a brown '61 Chevy station wagon.
His goal: to get there as soon as possible.

My brother and I bake in the back seat.
The air-conditioning freezes over.
We roll down the windows to a stifling
wall of heat. Soon, we will cross

Death Valley, already 111 degrees
at mid-morning. I squirm and worry
that we do not have enough
gas to make it. We are the only car

on the road. Emptiness breeds around us.
My imagination peoples the void
with phantoms, characters from comic books
and drugstore Westerns. Ghosts hover over

my memory now; they hold the key
to my travels. I must invoke them again.
I hear the rumble of the American Southwest:
canyons and buttes, mountains and hoodoos.

2.

On the outskirts of the Grand Canyon,
my father searches in vain for a place to stay.
All motels teem with the smell of curry --
for him, the stench of war in Calcutta,
anathema to a young Army Seabee
stationed leagues and leagues from home.

The neon light flashing VACANCY over
the whitewashed, A-frame office
might as well say NO. We do not stop.
We sleep in the car, the four of us
restive and uncomfortable, awakened
at last by sunrise over the North Rim.

A sage-scented day has begun
under a yellow-lavender sky.
There are still miles and miles to go,
as Frost put it. But something changed
in the night. Barreling down the barren blacktop
we have already gotten there, absence our new home.

The thoughts were driving me
into insane domains, slain syllables
spinning in my mind, the slashed
shadowed sky sinking in despair,
crimson clouds flooded with restless
rhymes, my eyes streaming with darkened
tears.  I could hear the air tightening
in my lungs, brutal drums banging
in my cells, the ceiling fan spinning
in dangerous directions, my head
feeling brain dead as I sat here
in the living room chair.  
There were wild flames
shouldering smashed depictions
of my malicious slave master
torturing me throughout the night,
forcing me on the bed, the filthy sheets  
smelling of foul liquor and cigarette buttes.
His burning breath stayed in my system,
haunting me, drinking my chemistry,
******* the serenity from my bloodstream,
from my lifeless flesh as his grubby
hands caressed my *******, making me
tremendously stressed, depressed,
faking the thrill as he spilled oozing
flames upon my splintered skin.
I was splitting apart, scarred, sunken
in immense tar, his kisses deafening
my speech, his dark eyes blinding
my light, ******* up my vibe as he slid
his ****** **** inside me, stealing away
all my priceless valuables.  I was sickened,
thickened beats blasting me into outer
galaxies, far away from the space station.  
I was his good loving that made him
feel like a man, like he had power over me,
like I was nothing but a meaningless
existence.  Now as I sit here watching
the ceiling fan steady swirling
around in circular motions,
making me scream in sporadic ranges,
the twisted trees bleeding with their leaves,
the grassland broken and swollen
like my unwanted soul, everything
shifting off course as I slipped
and fell on the flawed floor,
remembering it all, how it never
seems to fade away, how the vivid
images always seem to come
back in the most impossible way.