On Vulnerability

Okotoks, Canada, June 2009

Remember you were always most beautiful when vulnerable. And I don’t just say it for the green eyes, like once upon a time in a little attic with a little French lamp. Neither do I say it for the veil or for the Yellow Flowered Dress, who ended up impregnating all of my life with yellow. Neither do I say it for the rope marks on your wrists, or for the decadent afternoon chasing us all the way into your room. I say it because you were simply more beautiful and powerful when you wore your debility so blatantly. When you could paint the whole room of scarlet and silver with just a twitch of your weakest finger. There, given, surrendered to nothing but the tide of my meager mood, which you thought so mighty. When I was both a child and your master… There, given, with three thorns and a little drop of poison…

I am lost. I am lost, yet I am still vulnerable. I wonder if you are too or if the idle has taken command of you. I hear many have taken pleasure in your erratic search; you go dropping gifts like breadcrumbs, and then you sit on your window scrubbing tongue-strokes from your skin with a silver sponge, and you look outside, into the mirage of some garden of some Eden. And you moisten your lips obsessively as your flesh turns to stone. And you coil around the comfort of vanity and pride. Remember you? So beautiful when vulnerable, and so vulnerable the way I remember you…

Suburbia Sinfonica: Ode to Wellington, Florida

...and our twenty first century sits there, in front of the mirror, baffled at it's phony gleam.

I feel no inspiration in this horrid town. Everything is made out of plastic, and I am not very fond of that material. Palm trees have a certain gay hue of light blue or pink to them, and sprinklers rise from the depths of the green leaves of grass like nipples vomiting swamp water, like some sort of zit erecting from the earth to exhale sulphuric flatulence with the sole purpose of keeping the lawn greener. There is the worse demonic plague of police officers ever seen in humanity; it might even exceed the Key Biscayne plague in the turn of the century. In fact in just one block you are in the grave risk of getting several tickets for your mere existence, and Fun lays behind the cells of some damp dungeon for attempting to be free. For instance, Flamenco singing is absolutely prohibited, especially after two. There is nothing interesting, funny or even sexy in this forsaken town. I have resolved for not leaving my bunker. I will stay indoors to avoid the pernicious existence of my surroundings; I will apply all the immeasurable weight of my indifference to this despicable place. I do not even have money for cigarettes, so that takes all the romance away from any trace of nostalgia that might be left. Last night I realized that I have a hair stuck to my throat, a long woman’s hair; a never-ending hair, that if I pull out, it keeps extending and teasing my throat like a battalion of ants. So I have resolved for trying to swallow it, and I keep it back there and pretend it does not exist, but I know it is there, I can feel it slightly caressing my throat every time I breathe. My balls truly bother my existence these days. I have thought about cutting them off, in fact at times I feel that they have already been cut off; they have gone away without honor. This is the kind of thing that must be done blatantly. If they are going to leave me, they should leave me for good to let me rest in peace on top of my ball-less throne, but they go and then they strike back from ambush when I least expect it. They grab my entrails and shake me to dementia. Then I wonder if there could ever be a castrated bullfighter. Not that I plan to become one, but I like to think of myself as one. I like to stare at my dark ceiling at night and think I am a great bullfighter, a legend, and that instead of sitting among these cardboard walls, the burning sand lays under my thin canvas shoes and that blood and art are my everyday meal.

Thoughts on Canada

I flew from the epicenter of the tropics to the Californian desert. Planes are horrendous creatures, yet they have enough freedom in their purpose to make us, rudimentary bucolics, board them wearing carelessly our lack of understanding of their mad mechanics. So I did, climbed onto the disgusting seat and submitted to a turbulence beyond my comprehension.

Upon arrival, with coyotes howling (not at me) in the rearview mirror, I drove a big white truck with a twelve horse trailer in the back for three days. I drove through the blue Rocky Mountains; through blue mornings, and through towns of Country Stores and drugless meth addicts. Then I arrived to a Canadian town, somewhere in Alberta, where the Iraquois have not left a trace, and a provident healthcare treats frostbites: June 06, 2009 - My mother’s birthday- 1:01 am. And yes, as I was saying, snow falls on the green summer hills and breaks cat’s ears like little flakes of woodchips. This though makes them more loving, much less spoiled than cats in the United States, these cats in fact, do not bite or scratch, yet their nails are far from clipped. I suppose it is the inclement suffering that treats their humility with so much care… But I'll come back to cats latter...

The dirt keeps sucking the melting snow through it’s pores and a copper moon has now appeared wearing her yellow, hepatitic face. I’m back in the surgical solitude of a Saturday night, and again, my company depends solely on the mercy of night creatures and sleep. There are plenty of horses and women, which is far more than what any man could ever want, and yes I declare myself happy: Hypochondriacally happy. Yes, incurably happy… Maybe I'll be back tomorrow.