On Love

so this is the song we play. here is our dance. you look at me, innocent as a new lamb entering the world. tell me you love me. kiss me goodbye. hang up the phone. then you scribble some little angry remark and post it. and I? I look up at you and smile ever so sweetly as you mill about the room, or eat the sandwich that I, for the hunger of my love, rescued from the jaws of lame co-workers, and its my turn to hammer away at the keys like liberace on speed, playing out my angry tune as retort. they say that call and response is a fundamental part of black music, it’s at the root of who we are as products both of africa and this “new” world [thank you, mr. baraka.]. who knew it would pervade our love making as much as it does our ass shaking? (of course you know, I took liberties with that last sentence…parallelism above all things, mi amigo…I never met a trope or a scheme I didn’t like)

12:37 AM. so I sat next to her in what we politely call a bed, through this day of snow and cynicism, these final moments of the month dedicated both in antiquity and by the current administration to the god of war, and felt easily more alone that I had ever felt since before we were together. and like the naive little fool I am, I told her so, and she got more distant. good response, I thought, that should help the problem. I only barely stopped myself from saying those very words. instead, and wisely, I too quieted myself and chose a spot in the goosebumped ceiling to stare at with varying intensity until something else was said. preferably by someone other than myself. eventually it worked its way out into the increasingly colder air that trapped us in The Light Blue Comforter That Martha Would Disapprove Of. “I feel bad,” she said quietly, half to me and half to the pillow, “and I don’t know what I can do about it.” simple acknowledgement of my feelings. validation. even just some idea that that I have been heard. that she was still alive. a fucking nonverbal cue. anything. finally receiving this, well, it was at least a start. even if it did take a half an hour.

so why am I sitting here typing alone whilst she reads downstairs?

the futility of my resistance to the current state of affairs was making itself aware to me more and more with each newborn minute that this bloody meeting dragged on. I continuously fail to see why I must need be included in every discussion that is even tangentially related to that damned website, and why my fridays are a mush of nonsense, 2 hour lunches in the peeps room, and this 1+ hour block of time we mockingly (or at least for me, mockingly) call a “meeting.”

and in the pantheon of evil corporations, on the frieze up above the columns, add, next to the smiling face of mickey mouse and directly to the left of the bank of america logo, the computer-generated face of claire. that sprint pcs bitch. I don’t think I possess quite enough ire, enough pure bile, with which to fairly illustrate my hatred of sprint right now. their incompetence infested stores. service which can best be described as “can you hear me now? what? huh? @#&*! phone…” rude simpletons posing as gainfully employed workers. rip-offs and add-ons galore. its like a pyramid scam turned into a major corporation. and currently (and assuredly, for little longer) I am the scammee, and not the scammer. and I am so cool on that.

thoughts drift back to her. I know as I write these words I do so with the full knowledge she will devour every last one of them, though I am not clear as to what exactly I plan to gain out of this awareness, and my actions thereupon. she must know how I think of her, how my heart is hers, fully, completely, but even so she knows but does not know. thinks but does not believe it.

I am going home now. well, not now, as I am typing this, I am going to finish eating a few more slices of pizza, then I will pack my belongings and get moving like the wayward soul I am. for though I love her madly, I shall not be taken for granted. and that’s how I feel right now – completely taken for granted. its not important whether its true or not, its only important that I do feel that way. so its far better for me to take my happy black ass home, and be irate there, than to stay here and grow increasingly agitated and angry. yeah, I am hella sensitive, I know, but either you deal with it or you don’t. I think I just needed more than you were willing to give this evening. and I miss my own bed. my own walls. I wanted you to share them with me, but I don’t know, there are times I don’t want to have to remind you of our plans, when I don’t want to feel like the little kid tugging at his mama’s sleeve. “but you said…” so now its just me and comrade smirnoff. and we are making a go of it. maybe tomorrow night, you and I?

Gather round, all my children, and I will share with you these too-oft taught lessons of life, love and loss.

So have I learned…Keep your heart to yourself, guard it against all new would-be conquerors. Protected from the barbarians at the gates, you will come to no harm. Open these city walls to the invaders, and suffer at the hands of their cruel and senseless torments.

SWEET CLYDE, LAUGH DERISIVELY AT HIM

I sit in class, and failing to prepare, I write and write and write. And so I think, perhaps, this is the life for me, this is my direction, this is what I need to be doing. I only LOOK like I am taking notes, when instead I am crafting responses to Sadia, or composing some cliched poetry, or designing a webpage of some sort. Why again am I in law school?

PECADILLOES OR PARADIGMS?

Lo, a small, darkish nightingale lit upon my shoulder, and quietly, I heard what seemed a whistled message in my left ear. “I am hungry, feed me,” demanded the Bird, and so, being hungry myself, I understood this creature’s need, and proceeded to share all I had with it. And lustily did it devour my meal, every morsel and piece, even the crumbs, completely. Finishing that, the waifish warbler proceeded to gnaw upon my fingers as well and so, I drew back, fearful of becoming unable to pursue my chosen craft, and find my fortune, for lack of digits with which to grasp a pen and scribble my tired lines out each eve. Seeing the fear and hunger in my eyes, the Bird recoiled as well, and having fed so fully upon myself and my spread, and finding newfound strength welling up within itself, declared loudly, “Don’t be so self-centered, no one wanted to eat you, silly…and besides, I was never really all that hungry anyway. In fact, I wasn’t even talking to you.” And off it went.