Do you want to hear the great voice of the oracle? The explosive voice of life?
Sit down around a table. Take a sheet of paper and boldly write down what it is you want to know. Fold the paper, pass it to your neighbor who will write an answer without reading your question. And so on.
Open the paper and read. You will hear echoes that come from very far away, farther than yourself; and you will finally have the most beautiful conversation you have ever had with anyone and with yourself.
Take a look.
from Black, Brown, & Beige Surrealist Writings from Africa and the Diaspora (eds. Franklin Rosemont and Robin D. G. Kelley)
btw you will miss this in 5 or 10 years. memory will smooth these circumstances down like a river stone, and you will find yourself longing for a shade of light or a moment of this particular innocence. you don’t know about what happens next, and one day that will be the most alluring thing of all. don’t leave it all for nostalgia. have a nice night now, whatever night it happens to be.
Filling myself with liquid liqueur and trying really hard to preserve my shape and exterior resemblance to my old self in spite of my hollowness after a machine removed my pit . Sucked on and skewered; never plucked or puckered. Tied in a knot— not so soft as to risk softening. A water balloon with thickened walls like a heart’s chambers… Satisfyingly water soluble and bloodless… lovely on a shelf as a specimen in a jar … The objet petit a of desire for a pearl.. . I am the sweet maraschino cherry
“i can sing, too, but i’ve been hoarse.” a man sat beside me in the karaoke bar. as he continued telling me about his musical aptitude, i let my gaze go from his eyes, to his lips, to his throat, before it slowly climbed its way back up. i reached my hand over to his neck, touching where i saw veins popping out every time he had to raise his voice over the din.
“it’s because of all that tension you’re holding in there.” i let my fingers trail down to his chest, then put my hands back in my lap.
“well then, tell me what to do to get rid of it.” he scooted his chair so close, my legs were almost draped over his knee. i smelled miller lite and the tar from an american spirit on his mustache. it gave me an old familiar ache. i shifted my hips a bit. then i said, “a lot of the things i tell you to do might look stupid.”
he held my right hand in both of his, then made a plea. “i don’t care how stupid i’ll look, just make me feel good.”
Outside, everything has opened up. Winter clear-cuts and reseeds the easy way. Everywhere paths unclog; in late fall and winter, and only then, can I scale the cliff to the Lucas orchard, circle the forested quarry pond, or follow the left-hand bank of Tinker Creek downstream. The woods are acres of sticks; I could walk to the Gulf of Mexico in a straight line. When the leaves fall the striptease is over; things stand mute and revealed. Everywhere skies extend, vistas deepen, walls become windows, doors open. Now I can see the house where the Whites and the Garretts lived on the hill under oaks. The thickly grown banks of Carvin’s Creek where it edges the road have long since thinned to a twiggy haze, and I can see Maren and Sandy in blue jackets out running the dogs. The mountains’ bones poke through, all shoulder and knob and shin. All that summer conceals, winter reveals. Here are the birds’ nests hid in the hedge, and squirrels’ nests splotched all over the walnuts and elms.
