The Gay Tiger

The Gay Tiger

by Dale S. Hankins

I am gay. I am bi. I am hetero. I am me. I claim the right to use my sex as I see fit. I claim the right to be kind in the face of anyone's hatred of me. I claim the right to consider others feelings without being ruled by them. I claim the right to be free.

Others may restrict my actions, may take from me my freedom, may take from me the breath I now breathe. They cannot take my passion. They cannot take away my thoughts. They cannot take my imagination without killing the mind where it lives. And then what? They will be staring at my death. I will be here no longer. I will be free while they remain waiting for their wolves to tear the flesh from their bones.

Some say my hopes are but illusion. Perhaps that is true. Very well, then. I will elucidate the illusion. I will inhabit the dream. Follow me. Step outside. I am the girl, and the boy. I am the original dance between the two.

Always it has been so. Always. Always. I was caught between in the to and fro of sex before I was born, before I could see. I have no choice but to accept it. I must also accept the gift of talent given to me. To refuse the cups offered me is to die. I will sip and become both man and woman. I will believe what some have said – that I write with great beauty, that my art is inspiring, that it can be wonderful to be near me. I have turned away from these thoughts in the past, turned away from them, not wanting to harm or hurt anyone with the light some said they saw in my eyes, not wanting to see either jealousy or competition arise.

But what if the wings themselves are ilusion? Doubt within doubt surrounds me.

Some friends will hate me for making the changes I need to make. Many who are not friends already hate me simply for being who I am. I fear their hatred, but what am I to do? Shall I continue trying to be who they would have me be? Or, will I stand away from them as I grow new wings?

Why is there this pulling in my heart? Why is there this longing for being something I have never been? Silly questions these. These are the times when I must choose. I live and try something new, or I die.

I try to put the bi-sexual nature of me out of my mind. I put it on a shelf and stop thinking about it, just as I did for years, ever since I was teased for singing and for liking the color purple. But it will not stay put anymore.

At times I hate myself for even thinking of having sex. I am horribly embarrassed to bring it up in conversation, hiding my shyness with false bravado. Please save me from this. Please. Please.

I would pray, but there is no one there. And, if the God of the people of the book is there, he hates me for being who I am. I hope that life will find a path for me through this vale of tears. But, if it cannot, I will kiss the final breath that gives me release from the pain of feeling hated and ashamed for existing. Life is precious. Life is beautiful. I would keep it if I am able. But I cannot keep it unless I find a way to live honestly as who I am.

Others already are angry and upset with my behavior. I am feeling and being scandalous in their eyes. In mine, I simply am trying to survive. Take all of my money. Take all of my possessions. Take my life, if you must, but recognize I am just trying to find a way to live.

A year or more ago I wrote of a dream that I would find a people who accepted me and took me in. I wrote it looking out at the sun, coming up over the meadow that I no longer have the right to see. The sun filled me with hope that my dream, my dream, of writing for my life and finding beauty there would come true; that I would find a people that fully accepted me and loved me. The writing frightened me. I put it away and I can no longer find it. It saddens me that this is so.

Never mind. Never, never mind. I will stand again. I stand and sing these pages this morning.

When I share this with someone, they will caution me to moderate the heart that beats wildly within me. I will try to oblidge. I will fail. The tiger is unleashed. He will be caged no longer. His stripes will be seen, or he will tear apart me and my world.

The Train Of I Don't Know

Felt blue. So I wrote.

The Train Of I Don't Know

“Help me. I don't know if I can last much longer,” Branson said.

Susan looked at him cautiously. “Help you with what babe?”

He lay back on the bed. “I don't know. I really don't.”

“What is it?” She said.

“I just can't find...”

She moved closer and took his hand in hers. “Find what?”

“Find a way to make love without being high.”

“So,” she laughed, “Get high, who cares? Who's watching?”

“I am,” he said. “I'm always watching.”

They were in a tiny room on the sixth floor of the Hotel Lennox, in Paris. The aroma of fresh bagets floated up from the street, up past curtains fluttering in the summer breeze. Sweat dripped from a nipple to her thigh. It ran in a river down his chest. There was little about the scene to indicate the trauma inside Branson's head.

She pushed him back on the bed. He closed his eyes, an automaton. Not wanting to be here, he thought back to when he had read the symptoms of child abuse.

1. Difficulty with becoming aroused and feeling sensations – Check.

2. Sex feels like an obligation – Check.

3. Sexual thoughts and images that are disturbing – Check.

4. Inappropriate sexual behaviors or sexual compulsivness – Check.

5. Vaginal pain – a big NA on that one.

6. Inability to achieve orgasm or other orgasmic difficulties – Check, often.

7. Erections problems or ejaculatory difficulty – Check, sometimes.

8. Feeling dissociated while having sex – Check.

9. Detachment or emotional distance while having sex – Check.

10. Being afraid of sex or avoiding sex – Check.

11. Guilt, fear, anger, disgust or other negative feelings when being touched – a big double check on that one.

Sarah slid over with a spliff the size of a carrot. He took a big hit, held it in.

Little puffs of smoke rose up as he said, “That's better. Thanks babe.”

He held the smoke in until his lungs felt raw. He exhaled and looked at his face in the mirrored doors by the bed. Blood red eyes, pudgy, cellulite dimples on his ass, pretty disgusting all right. But he was hard as iron once again.

Sarah smiled as he entered her. The heat of him melted her plans of playing coy. She raised her legs as high as possible, while he rocked back and forth. After a few moments, he stood on his knees. He turned her over and lifted her ass, exposing the peach slit between the cheeks. He rubbed hs penis against the warm moistness of her before thrusting deep.

She pushed back against him. “Faster, faster. Oh yes, fuck me babe. Fuck me.”

The slap of his thighs against her ass drove him to madness. He thrust ever faster until he collapsed on top of her, pushing her down into the sheets. She came moments after he released himself between her legs.

“That didn't seem like someone who has a problem with sex,” she said.

“But, that wasn't me. It was the smoke.”

“So, you sayin' that wasn't your dick inside of me?”

He slapped her ass and fell forward next to her. He laughed.

“Yes, it was my dick. But it was a pothead dick.”

“I like your pothead dick.”

“But, you know I'm not supposed to smoke pot.”

She rolled over and put her arm over her eyes.

“Not that shit again. You know, you really must like being miserable. You do it so well.”

He bit off a fingernail. “I just don't want to go back to the hospital. I think I might have to if can't get past this sex thing. And it looks like the only way past the sex thing is to smoke pot. Maybe it would be best if I went back in. At least in there, I won't hurt anyone any more.”

“Fuck.” She said and leaped off the bed.

She was dressed by the time he got out of the other side of the bed. She had her sandals in her hand. They were the one's with the plastic pink roses. The one's they had bought last year at Corpus Christi. A little taco vendor had set up a booth next to the hotel. His wife sold the shoes. She cut plastic bags into roses and stapled them to sandals she wove out of palmetto.

“There you go again,” she said. “Drifting off to wherever it is that you go. How do you do it? Just three minutes ago, we were fucking like rabbits. Now you're where? Saturn? Pluto? Somewhere else anyway. Somewhere, where I can't reach you.”

He sat slack jawed. A bit of drool rolled from the corner of his mouth.

She set her lips into a thin line. “Okay. That's it. That's it. I've had it.”

The door startled him awake from his stupor. He was devastated. At least somewhere within himself he felt something that knew it should be devastated.

He got up and went to the bathroom. In the mirror, he saw the murderer. The one who had killed every chance at happiness he had ever had. How the murderer came to be. What created this Moosbrugger of joy that lived in his mind, what caused it to evolve and become evermore powerful, he could not tell. It was an ancient beast. Placed there before he had words to name it.

He no longer wanted to blame anyone for its existence. He no longer wanted to chastise himself about it. He simply wanted to be free of it. As the reality of Sarah's departure settled in, death was the only freedom he could imagine. He could hear people's assessment of his farewell performance.

“What a coward.”

“What a selfish bastard.”

He did not care. They did not have to find their way past the mine field inside his brain – a place hiding so many unseen dangers that he did not dare take a step beyond where he now stood. Frozen, he could hear a train coming. He felt it's approach. The train of fate, that would carry him to a land of eternal winter. It was a land of his own making perhaps. He accepted that. Still, knowing he might be the self-named Yahweh of his empty world did nothing to alter his despair. The train cared nothing for despair, or joy. It was not merciless, it was not filled with mercy. It was simply a train. Set on its journey by forces that he could not name. It was the train of “I Don't Know” driven by the engineer of where the fuck are we? He might seek guidance on how to avoid the train. He might learn the secrets of its wisdom. He could practice train dodging, train racing and train detection to prevent being struck by it, but it would hit him nonetheless. He heard the certainty of its approach in every scream from its damnable whistle.

“How could it not hit me?”, he thought. “Why can't people see that the train isn't something I chose? Who are they to say I must continue a life that is nothing but suffering, while I wait for the train? Why do they continue to blame me? If they think I am a coward, if they seem me as selfish and self-centered, then why don't they help me to die? Why not save themselves the trouble of continually arguing with a shit like me?”

Outside the door, down the hallway so he would not hear, Sarah bent over and cried silently. She felt as if she was going to throw up. What was she going to do? She hated this. Hated, hated, hated it. She almost made it her car, before the string linking her soul to his pulled her back up the stairs. She banged on the door. Nothing. Banged harder. Still nothing. She stood back and kicked near the handle. The door jab brook.

He lay on the couch. The joint was still in his hand. Motionless. He seemed dead, but she could see his breath lifting his ribs.

“Thank God, baby,” she said. “I felt so bad. I thought you were going to kill yourself.”

He took another hit. He blew the smoke in her direction and sighed.

She snuggled next to him, seeking warmth. She felt the coldness within him still. But she couldn't leave. She just couldn't.

“I am so glad you didn't die honey,” she said. “So, so, glad you didn't hurt yourself or kill yourself.”

Another hit, and he coughed. “No need to worry baby. I'm okay. The killing was done a long time ago. So long ago I don't even remember when it was.”

Photographs Not Taken

Photographs Not Taken

The same old fears and prejudices threaten to overwhelm my brain. Their grooves in my thoughts are well worn, and their pain is all to familiar. Let me lay them down for a moment and see if I can find a new thought...

Hopefully, I made a new friend tonight. A woman. A young woman.

I was nervous about going to meet her. The day before, I was filled with anxiety and felt a host of familiar questions. Questions that I have felt from the very first time I ever went to meet a woman outside of work. How should I act? What should I feel? How can I be honest about sexual attraction yet sensitive to her feelings? How do I not “miss” an opportunity for sharing pleasure, without being crude?

These thoughts are not helpful, if I want to retain my self respect, if I want to continue a path of being kind and being a “gentle” man. I tend to hide these thoughts. I push them aside, bury them. Once, I did so out of shame. Much of that is gone now, but my old shyness and fear of rejection remain. And, there still is the persistent desire to make love to the beauty of youth all men seem to carry with them to their graves.

I know I come by this desire honestly. I do not create them within myself. I can, with help and practice, moderate them a bit. As it turns out, I was able to do so this afternoon with my young friend.

I had prepared for the meeting as if it were a “date” rather than getting together for me to take photographs of her. We first met through my photography and I had asked to take more photos. My mind translated the word, photographs, into much more than images of light on paper. I carefully showered and dressed in one of my few non t-shirt shirts and a pair of slacks.

I am embarassed to confess this, but I even stopped by Hy-Vee, the local grocery store, to pick up some condoms. I got the fire and ice brand that I have seen advertised on TV. You know the ad, the one where the young couple, fresh from lovemaking, run in and buy before madly rushing out again, presumably to have yet more exciting and unrestrained sex.

Earlier that day, I had stopped by the local camera store to buy film for my adventure. I bought 14 rolls, maybe a little excessive for a single session but I felt it best to be prepared. I bought both black and white and color. I imagined myself taking pictures of “body” scapes, the name I used back in the 70's for photographs of the curves and lines of the nude human body. Such sessions more than once ended in hot sex. Dishonest of me perhaps, but my “partners in crime” seemed to enjoy the session as much as I did.

Well primped, equipped for sexual safety, and armed with enough film for a photo session with a female soccer team I arrived at my destination -- at precisely two minutes after the appointed time. My friend stood at the counter ordering tea. She was as radiant as I remembered. I also, ordered tea, peppermint. I ordered peppermint mostly because another young woman had suggested it to me earlier in the day.

As we waited for the tea next to my friend (let's call her Laura), I made my opening gambit.

“Laura, have you heard of Yerba Mate?”

Her brow furrowed. “No, I haven't. What is it?”

I launched into an explanation of Yerba Mate, something that I had seen a friend of mine Adam Weinstein, use as pickup line. I thought my lecture was enthralling. I ended with a half hearted invitation to go to the Red Poppy and sample one of their blends after we finished our photo “shoot”. She replied that later, she had to go cut her friend's hair.

I took a breath and relaxed. The pressure was off. There was no need to continue the pursuit of fantasies. I would have to make do with what stood in front of me, for however long it might be there.

Laura is short but has added thirty pounds of lean muscle in the past year. She is a sight for these tired old eyes, and, I dare say anyone else with an eye for the atheletic female form. Her eyes, are vibrant as I mentioned earlier, her breasts are firm, and her arms and legs have the look of a ju-jitsu artist ready to throw you to the ground. All of this is covered with creamy skin dotted with freckles of cinnamon. Sigh...

I suggested we sit and get to know one another better, shuffling the idea of photo shoot aside for another day. I had totally forgotten to bring my cameras inside anyway. (Now, that I reflect on it, she probably thinks the whole thing was a set up since I came in without them, oh well.)

We ended up sitting outside making our tea last as long as possible. We spoke of many topics. I waxed eloquent on some of my latest theories of how to depict the process of hypomania via mathematical formulas. She shared about her art and art studio.

I suggested that taking pictures at her studio would be better than just taking posed photographs. Several times I became confused, I felt I was getting mixed messages about Laura's feelings. I am sure that I was being confusing as well. My sexual feelings continued to arise and I imagined that she felt some attraction to me. I brushed these thoughts aside. I tried to remain focused on her words, but again and again, my eyes were drawn to hers with an intensity that I could not shake.

“Down that path lies madness,” I said to myself.

“Even if it were true, you need to consider the fact that she is just getting out of a difficult relationship. Think of her feelings rather than your lust.”

We talked for longer than she had planned, or at least that is what she announced as we finally rose to leave. I told her that I would wait for her to contact me and that she was safe. Stupid. Who tells a young woman that she is safe, other than someone who has anything other than “non-safe” sexual desires for a young woman? I waxed on about the fact that even though I might be interested in her, I was too shy to be a serious risk.

Finally, my imagined date, my evening of tea, my photo shoot without photos, ended. I followed Laur for a few steps even though my car was in the opposite direction. I stopped in at the Motley Cow (where I had a great meal by the way). Laura walked on to see her friend. The one in urgent need of a hair cut.

I analyzed and reanalyzed the evening in my mind. I became certain that I ruined any potential for future contact by my repeated reference to nude photographs. Only time will tell. If she reads this I hope she will know that I truly enjoyed the evening even if we never see one another again (how sad for me if that is true). After all, it allowed me to create this little piece and get outside of the darkness that often inhabits my mind. For that, I thank her and that which created her.

Listening to The Teddy Bears

Listening to Devil's Music by Teddybears

The following was written while listening to the album, “Devil's Music” by the Teddybears. It was the first time I had heard this group. The album has a lot to offer: wordplay, unusual and exciting instrument combinations. I particularly like the moog syntehsizer that scampers through some of the songs. Highly recommended – 4 out of 5 stars. Give it a listen. Of course, the group is in no way responsible for their effect on me or the words it produced.

Gravel. Metal voice without the spark.

Kicking it in though. Kicking it in. The drumbeat is enough to carry me. Enough for now. Little sisters dancing in a row. Come to sing at the evening show. Can you dig it? Can you be it?

Who knows what there is to see inside of me. Let it all fall out into the street. Pretty neat at your stomping feet. Don't give a shit. Don't give a damn. Me be the man. The man in me is enough for rolling this rock. Sisyphus dances. Rolling it up and watching it fall down, and rolling it up again. Prometheus cries as his liver is torn, punished for bringing fire to man, he leaves himself open to the pain yet again. No matter.

And then there is the children's laughter.

The moog soars behind the band. I hear the haters tell me to keep my mouth shut. Who knows how to do that? If you cannot take it, then don't shake the tree. Let the tree stand away from the crowd. Let the tree be.

Mamma hasn't heard. Mamma is in the dirt. Her ears are maggots worming their way through my brain. Let her buy her own house. Let her find it out, that in the end she is alone as she was alone with me.

No real anger on this score anymore, but no denial either. No place for silly fears and wishes. Not nihilist, but somewhere past that, to a place where even the effort of determining if nihilist is the place to exist. I find a room where I cannot see how dark it is in the dark.

More moogy in the music. Let's get down to the boogy. Woogying. Noogeying. Rub the head until it is raw. If they want it in the street then put it there. If they want it in the window, show it free from care. An ecstasy so far beyond fucking that they will never feel it. They can never know the electricity of it. The buggering they call elite is in the end just booty groovin'. Their disco lights are flashing to silly little tunes in the hashish of their minds.

Bottom flashing. Slapping that ass. In harmony. Booty. Silly rabbit. Silly girl. Trix are to be hid.

Drums be doin' the saggy. Baggy. Maggy. Waggy. No censor, only sensor. Let us dance the schizo-walz. Make the peace with the old man who selling burgers at the perpetual wake for a dream long gone.

He still asks for what he doesn't even know. If I am terminally unique. I don't give a damn. Terminate me. Take it and bite it, go ahead ignite it. Eat my bones, tear my flesh. I will enjoy it. I will relish the loss of the self pride you accuse me of silly, silly, and sillier still. Can you understand me? Can you even hear?

Marching. Marching. Religion. Superstition. Look it in the eye. Look beyond the patient recitation of obfuscation in the hope of redemption. Redemption of what? Redemption from what? Tell the tales of fairies. I do not deny you the privilege any more than I deny a child the freedom to believe in St. Nicholas.

S'okay. S'okay. I am not superior to any. I am not less than any. I do think and I do live. You are the one who thinks my thinking weird. You write the songs accusing me of anger and fear, so how is it that you become the thing you claim not to be?

At least let us be honest. At least let us start there. Neither of us know. Do not claim the holiness of a book. Do not claim the deity of a story. Do not claim it, unless you wish to hold it to the same scrutiny that you push upon me. Unless you are willing to challenge yourself what are you offering? I can easily castigate myself into the grave. Guilt and shame are easy commodities to purchase. They cost nothing. They are firmly wedged in my brain. I do not need the free helping you want to give.

Perhaps you have evidence of your majestic entity, that is unknowable and of universal power. Very well, please share. Do not leave me hanging here wishing for something you claim to have.

How cruel of you to turn away when I laugh, or claim you boast to be more than you can evidence within yourself? How hard hearted of you to say I am evil, without bothering to show me how. You quote words written so far in the past that you cannot even point to the dust from whence they came?

Heard the cat. This is the that of that. Cats do not get herded. They will not allow themselves to belong to a tribe. A dominant male is needed to calm the kitties. They may then follow at their own pace, but a herd they will never be.

Do my words anger? Do they cause dismay? How silly if this is so. They are but words, after all. Any fear or anger they cause as you read them was within you before they arrived. Hear them or not. Ignore them or not. I am not the words. The words are not me. My words and ideas are naught but leaves falling down to be burned in the kalpa fire. As soon as they form an idea, burn it. Burn it away so that making my words a reality does not become a prison for me.

Riffing away. Rigging a new sail. Please. Please. Let's see if we can sail to a new island. Cardiac arrest or no. Pitiful at best, we can perhaps remain afloat until new land is sighted. Let other toss grenades our way. Let them fire the cannon of hatred and prejudice. We will laugh at the emptiness they have drawn around themselves. It is the same emptiness we imagine for ourselves, we must admit to that possibility or become the thing from which we would be free.

Step and dance. Stay in the head today. Save the bottom for another time. Take it down. Be ready for moving to a new town. Leave behind all the things that hide in the storage bin. Hit the broad highway. Austrailia, Nigeria, London, Paris, LA and the big Apple. All await another bite.

I fear though. How often I fear. How long I fear. I want to hurt not. I want not to be hurt. Lost to dancing. Lost to feeling. Will it tear me apart as it has before? Can I risk the light behind the Green Door? The world seems harder than ever. The desire seems more empty than ever. Ever must it be. Let me hope it may not be so for me, once before the final shade let me lie in soft arms. Let me feel the tender kiss on my brow. Let me know as I have never known that the one bestowing the love is not inside my head trying to beat me and leave me alone in the dark as always. Always it has been so. At least it seems as if this is the place I find myself, and I do not know how to leave the seeming behind.

Temptation surrounds me. Groin ignites with dreams. Toes wiggle. Lips of pomengranate. Boy hair and earth mother breasts she sits across from me. At least I can look. I need not go further than that for now. I dream. I dream. It hurts to dream, but it hurts even more not to do it. Push, push, push to be honest. Be the gene, that drives the whole scene. We wriggle and writhe claiming to be more than the biology. We are not the authors. We did not create the lips, the eyes, the breasts. We did no create the desire to touch. How awful then to be denied the freedom and power to access the joy that seems allowed to others. Let me end this crying. Let me end this self pity. Play the organ one last chord. Find a lost chord or a new one, I will carry it with me.

Listening to Adele "21"

Wrote this today at the Bluebird. Completed it at 9:14 AM, 7-5-2011 It was written while listening to the album "21" by the singer Adele. I did not edit it. Sometimes I write just to let my feelings flow.

Listening to Adele “21”

Faded rumors lost in the deep. Never minding. No one else's soul mine to keep. No one to own. None to be owned by. All good. All good. All is had by those who will have it. No more secrets. No more silly games. In the light of the sun, the sun's day.

Fly on the window. The window on the world. Head in the clouds? Maybe. Maybe so. How to move it elsewhere? It is my head. I would find a place for it to rest. I would find a place that is the best for the one who rests and the one who provides the sanctuary. How to see it, after so many years of being blind? Might it be in front of me? Just beyond my sight? Might it be lost in the silkiness of the night? The duskiness of your voice makes me wish it were you. But I have fooled and been fooled enough to be filled with so much doubt that I have learned to take my peace among the leaves of trees and lines upon the page.

Must it always be a battle? Can I move past the challenge of controlling to be controlled? Let the hair go free. Comb it now in front of me. Walk slowly that I can see the beauty that flows from you. I will let that be enough. I will no longer try to wrest from someone that which they will not freely give. Who needs to steal beauty? Who can do it? The flowers share it freely. I am not a flower, but I can see the wonder within them. I can drink this glass of water and know that it unites me with all that has been or ever will be. Will you join me, can you, will you, join me in the dance?

This morning colors flowed onto the page. I loved them. I love every woman I have ever been with. Truly I do. I did not know how to stay with them. I did not know how to be what they wanted me to be. But still I loved them, even though some were kinder to my touch than others. Some caused passion to rise within me more readily than others. Some were sad at my leaving. Some were glad to see me go. I cannot judge this. I cannot read their minds. They cannot read mine. I have to trust that most of the time I have tried to be kind. At least now, at long last, when I feel awake most of the time.

Today I walked under a tree and brushed its leaves. I breathed the air as if for the first time. But, I know that all this can quickly turn to darkness, as soon as I become greedy for it. As soon as I try to crush it with the lie of ownership, it will wilt and fade. Best to enjoy the love in front of me. Even if it's only the fly that brushes my arm. In that brush I can feel the majesty of life itself come down to me.

Now, I look at the water glass and the bottom shines more brightly than the sun itself. Somehow the water takes the light and transforms it to make it into another element. Water, glass and sun. Me, air and the one. The one that lives within me. The one that has no name. The one that cannot be named. Let others try to name it. Let them waste their breath. Let them make the knowing into a test. Silly minds. Silly like mine can be at times. But not now. Right now. The bliss lives here. It cannot be touched by anyone else's darkness. The gates of others' hell have no power here. Mine are the fingers that reach out and bring the joy to me.

Listening to your voice, my dear singer. The voice of an angel come to me. Thank you. Thank you.

Seems like a dream as I hear the warmth in your song. If I find the love that lives in your song, I pray that I am strong enough to feel it bravely and without shame. Someone will have to help. Even thought the joy flows in me and is a private place there, I know that it is stronger with another. At least I hope that it is so. I have thought to find it. Let it go. Let it go. I will no longer drink, smoke, or chase it away. Still there is something broken within me. I seek the help of Doctors, I seek the help of the Earth Mother, let the sun shine. Let the clouds flow. Someday I hope to know that which moves them.

I have left as a fool, and been left as one too. There seems no answer to this dance. Each of us seems twisted in a rope of fate. I once thought I could give everything to another. I once thought someone could give me everything. Yet another veil, hiding the life and causing pain where none was needed. How to let this go?

I see many moving in the reflection of this window. Cars, people, moving, moving to their own rhythm. Do they want freedom from their sin? Who am I to judge it for them? Who can forgive them for doing something that they don't even know they have done? Better to look at the flowers.

Clear out of the window is the color purple. Many blossoms. Purple and more purple still. There is a faded daisy, but most of them are purple. Please hold to this and do not worry about sin, forgiveness, and pain. Time to dance. The birds know it. The flowers know it. Let us follow them. Someday they will fade. But today they bloom still.

Your voice dear singer has the power of life within it. Please let it celebrate and not mourn for something that may not exist. You need not own someone. You need not belong to someone. You have the power of the Mother within you. Share it. Lift us up. Lift us higher. Teach us to sing. Not to mourn.

If not my arms, the arms of someone who makes you laugh and can show you love will find you. Like me you must let go of the faded colors of old drapes. Let in the light. Cast out the night. But do not settle. Wait until the gift rises up to meet you. It may not come, but better to wait, better to risk flying like Icarus, too close to the sun, than to descend into Hades in perpetual search for Persephone. Life shor and live bright rather than in the shadow of eternal gray. Be the happy child. Be the one who leads us home. A voice such as yours has the power to create a path clear and shining.

A final moment of dreaming before I go. I feel my fingertips ignite, as they brush against your skin. They slide down your spine to find the crease between butt and thigh. Rising up again they tickle along your side, over your ribs to find a nipple and trace its tiny circle, caressing each tiny bump and silky bit of you. My lips follow the path blazed by fingertips. Finally, tongue finds its way to the place of honey and joy.

There was a time when I could act out my dream of love. It was a time of a little fear, a time, a brief time, when I was able to soar with smoke and not be consumed by it. I think that I can find it without the smoke today. I will continue looking. I will remember the feeling of loving, even if the remembering hurts, sometimes more than I can bear. Memory of love. Memory of lovemaking. Memory of pain and parting. Turn to love before me. Turn again, and again if necessary. How else to find the color purple and live again within the flower?