Love Finds Want Where Children Run
Ginsberg, Thompson, Joyce, Poe, whoever - whenever. We were coming back from [blank] when the [blank] hit the [blank]. I can't write like that so I won't try. What I can do is think. I can think uninterrupted about what I want and me. I can chase all the greatness that mediocrity claims it deserves and I scream at the top of my lungs for my righteous inheritance of peace and fulfillment. But screaming echoes off the clouds and falls to earth in shards or frozen shit. Prayers find their way into some box somewhere read by a man pushing a broom on the night shift at a convenient mart.
Do I want love? Do I want love - he asks himself while wearing headphones and looking for a title track to beat the keyboard to. Do I want love? He hasn't answered yet - so that's a resounding "I don't know". What is love to someone who knows no pity or remorse? What is love to someone who values very little but his own dreams and importance? I can chase love but it's more or less like being little and wanting to be an astronaut.
"Oh Mommy can I have the book on Mars? Can I have the book on Venus?"
"Why?"
"I want to be an astronaut."
"Sure - you can have one of them."
So you go to your room and you study and study and study. You find out about black holes, sunspots, craters, and Stephen Hawking's wheel chair model. You fondle and caress everything about space. You look up and you aren't a child anymore. You look up and you are 15 with a 2.7 GPA and C in Trigonometry. Your dreams of space have long since left you. You still like to look through a telescope from time to time but for the most part, the dream of space has long since left you. It's a flighty dream - and there are people who think airplane travel, seeing Paris, or a trip to the county fair is the equivalent of my space dream. The preparation is not all that great but neither is the reward.
Do I want love? I can say yes over and over again but I can be scared just like you. I can think about you in front of my mirror with your hair iron thingy while I wondered where to impress you in the museum. Would I make my move at the Monet or the Seraut? Would I try to explain true Chinese food or would I simply take you for a beer? Is there an art to love? Is there anything more than a desire to want to be naked, peaceful, laughing chubby little creatures that allow for each other's transgressions? It is nothing more than that. It is more than that empty dried out husk you run home to every night. It is work but it is space.
Do I want you? Yes. Do I want me with you? That's a whole different story.
There once was a painter in Italy working on his masterpiece. He had an apprentice with him that followed him around and would set up his easel and fetch his paints and coffee in the evening. He paid the master's bills and made sure he was to work and off the bottle from time to time. The master had been working for years on this project. The paint faded in some corners but the structure for something monumental had been made. The master grew weary one day and fell down. He hit his head and handed his brush and palette to the apprentice. In his final words he said "Finish my love." The apprentice ran out of the house screaming and crying. The painting gathered dust and was thrown in the trash heap upon new tenants arriving.
The thing that worries love the most is the immeasurable aspect of smell, and the feeling you get in you stomach when love comes walking near you. It worries love because those are just a couple of things it can't control. Love can exist in one but not in the other. Love can stand there banging it's tuning fork in one body only to see the other body never rosin a bow to lift to the strings. It can hear no such tune and has no music to play.
Now, I want me. I want to be proud of me. I'm getting there. I have a few good friends and a Mother who might just help me. I have an idea of love that allows me to be strong. I have books on space that I can look to when I get bored. I want me to be me. I was made to be strong and questioning. I was destined to flutter in the sky like a burning kite let go over the tree lines. I will come for you when my day is done. I will come for you when I am smiling, not because of you, but because of me.
You can't have a cheetah as a pet. It will run off. It will suckle you as a kitten and maybe even play with a tethered ball that you lay on the floor for it. After a little while it's tail is knocking over lamps and it's teeth no longer graze but instead cut as you play. It's urges and appetite grow and your backyard cannot hold it's dancing eyes.
The sun shines for her when I think about it the right way. The glistening of buildings seems to not only birth the day but it births my smile as well. Her sun sprinkles those buildings with tiny mirrors or glitter. They are the same tiny mirror that wake me in the morning and dance across my closed my eyelids right before I sleep.
Have you ever seen a beaten puppy eat from a human's hand? It's a beautiful thing that makes you sad. You can see the puppy's history in those fragile little steps. The mistrust in his eyes is apparent as he sniffs the air. The human has the treat in one hand and if they were smart they would have the other palm open and visible. The puppy's eyes will dance from side to side looking at both hands. It will bark at one of them and it will wait for your fear or anger to resonate through its heart. If it feels the doubt it will scurry back under the couch or behind the trashcan. If that resonance comes out like a mother's warm hug after a scraped knee then you may just get a puppy, a puppy once whipped, to eat from your hand.
