I saw a man in a flowing white robe, the kind Jesus wore. He floated across the street in front of me, using the crosswalk like any respecting citizen, brown hair and trimmed beard blowing slightly in the breeze. Come to think of it, the guy actually did look like Jesus, gliding along, arms outstretched, nodding apathetically at the people punctuating his aimless journey…
But that couldn’t be him. Jesus hasn’t been here in a long time…
“The streets are extended gutters,” I heard a man say once. That makes sense in this town. The ridiculous worship of inane people and inane things is the driving force of life and the sidewalk Jesus couldn’t do much to stop the rising tide of shit heading down the boulevards. His struggle lets me know just how truly alone I am.
Life is just a series of lines and all we do is constantly queue up for the next wait. When we look around at the people waiting alongside us, we see a parallelism that is as comforting as it is frustrating. That is what makes us human; we want to change but are too afraid to do so. It’s a sickness of my generation that we constantly want innovation and change while consistently falling in line with whatever our parents already believed, further perpetuating that cycle of stability. It is almost unavoidable that we will become our parents, whether or not we say otherwise.
That’s why I started all of this. That is why this journey is poignant to me…I need to prove to my family that I am more than just some silly fuckup. They need to see me for what I truly am and what great work I can perform. They need to know me for who I can truly become.
That is my purpose…that is the meaning of life…
Recognition.
***
She starts to breath heavily, panting, lost in the shadows of lust’s embrace. This is the best time for us; when we are at our most basic, at our most primal. The push and pull of love’s frenzied, stifled throes…that is perfection. Or, nearly perfection. That sudden release is like a breath of air after drowning…the contented smiles are the surviving remnants of a previous existence. The wonderful afterglow of two people so perfectly intertwined that only God could separate. That pleasure…that is God and her legs are the altar at which I worship.
Only one step remains…the hands. They caress, they stroke, they touch…the faintest of touches conveys so much about the person from which it comes.
The study of touches is one to which I have been forever a student. Small inclinations in one way or another alter the mood of those around them. With a slight shift in finger placement, a person can change from an erotic caress to a crushed windpipe…So much power lies in the touch.
You can see the light drain, the conscious mind slowly go to sleep, and there…there is your perfection…coming through one gasp at a time.
Mother would be pleased…
***
There is such an underwritten quality to the work with which I am so obsessed. No one truly appreciates it except for mother and after all, she is who this is for. I remember when I was younger, maybe five or six, and she found me in her room. I was playing on her bed, amidst all of the folded laundry she had finished earlier and one of her bras had found its way onto my back. I wasn’t wearing it per say but the material felt nice. As a six year-old, I hadn’t quite grasped the concept of gender roles. My mother was not at all amused. I remember the look on her face as clear as if it were yesterday.
That face was so ever-present in my childhood…something void of emotion…no love, not even contempt…just disconnected disappointment.
She shuffled over to me and in one motion, she broke my right femur. I deft flick of her wrist punctuated by an ear-splitting crack. I wailed and screamed but she let me know immediately that if little boys wanted to play in momma’s things, there would be consequences.
The doctors all thought that I had fallen while climbing a tree. If they had looked into the situation, they would have realized that the bra was on under my shirt…a humiliating punishment for the unknown line I should have never crossed.
Mother was like that. It was the full picturesque quality of her character to be so loving that she let me know precisely where I stood at all times, and never let me forget the consequences for my actions. For that, I am forever grateful. Even today, she is watching over me. I know for a fact…I can feel those loving eyes.
People in general are like that. Every person has the limit, a breaking point, and when pushed beyond, the end is always the same…that is why I promised myself never to disappoint mother again.
david m ames 