Genuine

Some of what he says disgusts me, but the way he says it is the song that I want everyone to sing no matter what the words are. I want heartbeats to pass through lips. Irony is a flatline. I wish a could purge it, I wish a could run steel wool over my porous mind to shed the grime that refracts my presence. I expect to have something to tell, but the speech is empty at the podium and the audience sends their regrets in absentia. Polish anything and it shines, we find it's all made of the same thing.

I can't imagine someone touching me. I wonder how I will feel in a week. I will dance into a crowd and drums will kiss courage into me and then I'll face the people. What will it feel like. It's amazing but I sometimes wonder if everything is about to fall apart. Our experience is built on a thousand social contracts, and a few of us break them every day. When the critical mass crosses over... it could be that nothing happens. I see everyone at a stasis--if the worst were to happen and my dream come true--and they are trying to pick up where they left off while avoiding eye contact and the exchange of mutual blame. Anyone could say to anyone "You let go, you brought it down," but people hate to speak in unison and the chorus would overwhelm the diva. I just can't imagine how one could strengthen the contract, I only see trust dissolving into dust, blown to the edges of the map in ancient stacks of what used to be.

I think I have a hidden store of energy. Perhaps the exhaustion is just habit. Or the release is simply ritual. In any case: something is not as it seems. I should be fighting in a crowd tonight but I am writing in my bed because my record is the only idol I have to worship. I'm also tired and quiet and personal.