liturature, humanity, goodness.

i am cal.

the beauty of literature, the profundity of recorded words, is humanity. finding myself wrapped in the words of another, the common experience.

and, when cal pleads in his bed, 'i want to be good', he is pleading for me too. echoing me. my thoughts. this is where genius lies, i think. not in something new, but something old. echoing our ancient thoughts. making them known to us, for us.

i do not believe i've ever made a sacrifice.

it is lent. fasts broken three days in. no stamina. no suffering.

i do not believe i've ever gone without.

i hate this freedom. the choice. the ability to walk away. i hate this freedom to cover myself in my own filth. this is not why he set us free. this is not it. couldn't be. not even sure he wants us to be able to see how bad we can be, the x-rays of our hearts. not sure he wants us to look upon our own decay until, like dorian, we cannot keep living.

do not leave me alone. i do not know how to be good without you next to me. no one has ever shown me. keep your leash on me, abandon my freedom, fetter me, bind me, wholely. do not let me out of your sight, your reach. trip me, punch me, ravish me, until i stop, i am yours, i choose no, i say yes to you, and mean it. beat my no's out. love my sin out of me.

have no goodness in me, except when you look at me.

want to love what you love, hate what you hate. return to innocence, erase memory, unlearn how to sin.

do not let me out of your sight.

yellow bicycle

The Yellow Bicycle

BY ROBERT HASS

The woman I love is greedy,
but she refuses greed.
She walks so straightly.
When I ask her what she wants,
she says, “A yellow bicycle.”

.

Sun, sunflower,
coltsfoot on the roadside,
a goldfinch, the sign
that says Yield, her hair,
cat’s eyes, his hunger
and a yellow bicycle.

.

Once, when they had made love in the middle of the night and
it was very sweet, they decided they were hungry, so they got up,
got dressed, and drove downtown to an all-night donut shop.
Chicano kids lounged outside, a few drunks, and one black man
selling dope. Just at the entrance there was an old woman in a
thin floral print dress. She was barefoot. Her face was covered
with sores and dry peeling skin. The sores looked like raisins and
her skin was the dry yellow of a parchment lampshade ravaged by
light and tossed away. They thought she must have been hungry
and, coming out again with a white paper bag full of hot rolls,
they stopped to offer her one. She looked at them out of her small
eyes, bewildered, and shook her head for a little while, and said,
very kindly, “No.”

.

Her song to the yellow bicycle:
The boats on the bay
have nothing on you,
my swan, my sleek one!