DESIRE
Palm Springs, CA 1974
I Desire Life
Life, I desire you so strongly it’s all I can think about. How to entice you. How to get you. How to get more of you. How to hold onto you. And I pray every night that I will see you in the morning.
Life, I want you so badly that I will go through just about anything to have you. I will cut off my breasts, lose all my hair, hand over my lymph-nodes, take endless rounds of chemotherapy, radiation, surgeries. I’ll suffer pain, upset, fear. I’ll learn new skills, do tons of research, whatever it takes to have you I will do. I want you.
I will give up alcohol and gluten and dairy. I will consider kale. I will exercise religiously and speaking of religion I will paint every day because that is my way of praying. I’m doing this all for you Life, because of my strong desire for you. Don't you want me baby? Don't you want me, ohhhhhh?
Hey, Life, I am the first to admit that for at least 30 years I took you for granted. I assumed you’d always be there for me. And I assumed my desire was mutual. In hindsight I can see I was a jackass, a little too immature to understand you. I took wild risks, taking off for Palm Springs with just my yellow bikini under a pair of cut-offs, some cash wadded up in my pocket. Boy was I living freely in those days. No fear or worry. Just long legs, long hair, long nails and my hazel-green eyes on the lookout for a cute guy with a convertible and some pot and a place to stay. Life, I didn’t value you like I do now, but I did enjoy you fully. And I learned some lessons.
As I matured I realized our desire was not mutual. In fact, I realize that you are so Zen, that you don’t even have desire. You have no attachments. Nothing is personal. You dole out luck on a random basis. You hold nothing too tightly except you hold everything. Pain suffering life death births murders, fortune and misfortune, all the people, all the animals, everything we know or see on Earth---and nothing is too big or too small for your acceptance. LIFE I WANT YOU!!!
That’s what makes you so attractive to me. Your Absolute Zen indifference. I want you Life, even if you don’t want me in the same way I want you.
I’ve tried to embrace your ways; the detachment; the nonchalance but I’m too passionate in my creation. Sometimes I desire the gifts you send me; humans, healers, even the assholes. Sometimes I even desire the assholes. Usually I desire them in my bed. But it’s you I want every day all day.
I want you Life. I want you in all your messy madness, your chaos, your seductive delicacies, your avalanche of good and bad news, and your tremendous indifference. Life, it is you and has always been you that I am after.