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This You'll Never Know

She walked the way Ornette Coleman played saxophone, seeming to fling herself in all directions at once, yet looking and moving directly and confidently toward a definite destination. I watched her with great pleasure as she walked through a newly paved parking lot, enjoying the feel of smooth tar under my own feet and feeling that all the action of the lot was popping & swirling in perfect syncopation with her body even as she transcended it. The muscles in my back rippled and stiffened whenever I saw her. I was amazed at times at the feeling of incredible power within my own body, & thought that I had found somebody to match it. Recently, while staring into a cheap hotel mirror, I had had a thought that earlier in my life would have been dismissed as an unforgivable arrogance; that my body was too beautiful, my face too hard & well-carved, to be left hidden from most of the world. And she was the one to share it with. Our bodies, each slender muscle of them, had been made to collide violently with one another, to kiss so hard that the teeth would bend inward the way a trumpet's stem pushes the teeth back, but faster, to feed on the energy that we had never been able to give to anyone else, to be equals. When I was alone and thought of her, visions of tropical fish, fresh animal meat, & heaps of sliced, motley fruit in bright bowls would possess me, everything florid, everything violently bright and gorgeous that was a part of her and the likes of her. Her image made me want to throw a grenade into a convenience store, in order that it's squat, cowardly architecture, tasteless products & chalk-faced patrons would no longer be allowed to exist alongside her. I had told her this, and she had been thrilled, being every bit as impressed with herself as I was, and finally hearing a description of herself that she could embrace, offered by a man. I had held back, slightly, in my conversation with her, but knew that I needn't have. Bold, honest, unashamed desire drives most people away, I had told her, but those aren't the people you want around you anyway. And yet I had held back. Why?

I had known that after our first meeting, she would become elusive once again, avoiding my phone calls, and she had done just that. Was it because she lived with a lover, or because she was afraid of my intensity? I had finally contacted her again, recently:

"Hello?"

Christ. That brutally inviting voice. I wanted to find a high outdoor skyscraper porch to fuck her on, in front of a whole city, carving a path through dead moths & dust with her ass.

"What are you doing right now?"

"Oh...it's you."

Was that cowardice in her voice? The waver in her speech was something I hadn't heard before. It was very unbecoming. All my life I had been searching for someone who was as guiltless, as unrestrained, as me, so that I could finally share the uncensored version of myself with another human being. Was she about to disappoint me? I wouldn't be surprised if my fantasy of her was overblown, but she did write very beautiful poetry. Then I remembered that she hadn't been sure if her writing had been any good. Why did I have to be sure for her? Why did I still feel the need to convince others of their worth?

"Come meet me at the restaurant. I want to see you again."

"I don't like to make plans."

"Neither do I. Meet me anyway. If you don't show up I won't be offended, but if you do show up I'll be thrilled."

"Ummm...alright, but--"

"And bring more of your writing. I'm curious to see if it's all as good as the first stuff."

I hung up.

I was at a payphone & I saw a squirrel flattened by many tires at my feet. I stared at it's distorted eyes & tried to imagine what her back would look like naked.

In the restaurant I didn't even say hello when she sat down, just stared at her. She usually enjoyed being stared at almost as much as I did, but this time she looked nervous. I thought to myself that it was shameful if the man she was living with made her feel like that, and had a strong impulse to ask her if I should eat her cunt for her under the table, which I resisted. I handed her a page covered with my words, rampant & passionate. I was utterly convinced that words like this could still throw a wrench into the motor of the fabricated world I had been raised in, and my writings were the best test of her courage, since they demanded that the person reading them have confidence in themselves:

"edible clouds descend on empty concrete

bent fenceposts & rusty flagpoles

unreceptive antennae

angel, there is no cage assembled

in those cirrus clouds

for you to house your recidivist soul,"

She read my words aloud. I grinned at her, a grin that would have been a leer if it hadn't been so utterly lucid & unashamed.

I want someone that I can admire as shamelessly as I admire myself.

I had stood at a clean window thinking of her before I walked downtown, drinking hot water, letting it warm my unused vocal chords & listening to "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" watching the world get dim because it was late in fall & it got dark earlier than I wanted it to (I listened to music for many hours daily, preferring it to conversation), and visualized myself conquering her because I knew that I was capable of it, drinking hot water because it was cold & I didn't have time to waste on making coffee or tea. I had stripped my existence to it's core, a bare table & a typewriter, seeing myself reflected in a large digital clock, raising a clear steaming glass to my lips, working only enough to buy food, bored of old friends & unable to tolerate conversations with my family, who mystified & frightened me with their overwhelming lack of imagination. She had been different, mystical & deep enough to make me consider the possibility of human interaction. I was actually a very social personality, but had stopped spending time with people when they had run out of things to say, and I was bored of amusing them. I had turned the music louder and thought of taking her to a cheap hotel somewhere desolate, and letting all the thoughts that I had always wanted to share with another human being pour out of me & into her, remaining in us both.

Her lover was a heroin dealer, and I detested drugs, (despite the fact that many of my favorite artists had indulged in them) believing that they allowed too many people to accept their own mediocrity, which was the only other thing that I detested. While I had been fighting to destroy the mediocrity in myself, her lover had been actively serving mediocrity in his clients. But I didn't say this to her. What I did say was:

"Anything comprehendible about me is in those pages. I left my phone number at the end so you can call me if you want a challenge instead of a human armchair."

Why did she stay with a man who wasn't her equal? She had always been attracted to men who had an aura of danger about them. But how dangerous was someone who served a want in others? Was a drug dealer really dangerous to the world as it stood? Didn't he serve a logical role in his country? Wasn't an artist more dangerous? The man across the table from her served only an intense need in himself. She had thought at first that perhaps he was too safe for her, but now she saw more contained violence in his eyes than in anyone she had ever known. She shivered. He got up and said goodbye. They hadn't even ordered yet, and she was annoyed with herself for being startled at his behavior, priding herself as someone who had experienced much and was no longer capable of being surprised. She watched him walk away and wanted to spit, not bothering to speak, wondering what it was that the rebellion she felt in herself was directed toward. Yes, I wish I could live from inside her during those moments.

I walked out into the neon sidewalk, happily surprised by her speechlessness, thrilled by the feeling of possibility. I wanted someone to celebrate the intoxicating life that I had found in myself, but had never found a worthy accomplice. I expected to be disappointed again, but was happy with myself for trying to reestablish contact. Seeing the dead squirrel again, hearing my own drug, music, begin to throb in my headphones, I wanted her to recognize herself and travel away with me, wanted her to see the tears in my eyes when I read Henry Miller out loud to the mirrors or listened to Louis Armstrong sing, wanted to masturbate in front of her, to tell her of my dreams of calm cannibalism, to let her whip me with black-eyed susans, to drive through the ruins of a confused country with her in the passenger seat. Or in the driver's seat.

In essence she was a whore, sharing herself with people who didn't have the capacity, or even the desire, to understand & appreciate her, still attending the drunken parties of prerecorded conversation, still fucking her boyfriend in the same presumed position, still smiling at the world's idiots. And I understood, because I too had spent impotent years with family, friends and even lovers who were incapable of appreciating what was good in me. I had waited for their enlightenment that was never coming, for a pair of eyes that would reflect my own knowledge. And I had never allowed myself to get used to disappointment. She had something that I had been missing all my life, not a lack in myself, but a lack in those I had previously whittled away my time with. Yet her personality was diluted, and I had an irritating hunger to find out why.

I flex my muscles for the mirrors, dream of running nude through the supermarket, recall the fake fruit on the Thanksgiving table on the day I last saw my family, singing along to my stereo drunk on just oxygen, and remember my last lover and the way she used to stare through me, uncomprehending, & get lost in the wall's wood patterns while I talked, desperate to be understood.

She hasn't called. Coward.


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