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Pilgrim

The first time a sailor from the Old World jerked off in the New, what was his feeling? Was he comforted by the familiar touch in a strange land, distraught that nothing had changed, numb and soggy from the salt water after 71 days at sea, hungry for a new approach to masturbation to couple with the new land? Did he picture Queen Isabella or his idea of a native? Was it in a crude cabin, by the fire, or on board the Pinta, the Nina, or the Santa Maria? Did Columbus walk in on him? Was he killing himself because there was a lack of food and the act of jerking off was essentially suicide: a last, desperate attempt at pleasure within the pain? Did he have any idea that the romanticized freedom the New World idealized might be contained in his jerk? Was he thinking of the population in his cum? Would America have gone smoother if he'd saved that ejaculation for a fertile kitchen maid or Indian? Were his little pilgrims the only ones accustomed to being in an unfamiliar place, the open American air and not the acidic American vagina? Did the cum spill onto the ground, seeping into the deepest foundation of the country to become corn, then tobacco, then cotton, then peppers, then wheat, then oil, then clay, then concrete, then Wi-Fi, then cum on all the computer screens he sailed so long and jerked so hard to provide us?

As it just so happens, Madam, I love my Mary. It's understandable that by the way I look at you and her that you would think an advance would be appropriate, but, and I mean so little offense that it might be called no offense at all, you are mistaken. Mary has even pointed out that I eat with a look of intensity, whether I enjoy my meal or not, so my manner of regard shouldn't be a basis for any impression.  I may be brooding or even cross when I look at my love across the table. It does not matter. The softness with which I regard you is not a plea that you should do what I cannot or will not--it is a softness that is in my nature and so, my regard. While studying French in Nice, my professor, Mme. Corrine, advanced on me in a French, didactic way, saying, "Mauricio, j'adore votre regard." This sentence taught me about both the universality of my magnetism and the connection we share with the French via our derived but common language. The French have stereotypically been the mor-de-femme and I daresay that may have been passed on to me, however diluted by half of my hot and noxious blood that boiled in my ancestors' veins along the equator. Even now I see you staring into my eyes--are you even listening to me Madam Sah- d'accord, I apologize, I apologize. But I see you shiver when I breathe the French r. Do you even see me? Are my eyes all that you can bear to see? Madam, Madam, look anywhere but my eyes, Madam. Look at my voice! Feel my name! Look at me!

Tickle you, smile at you, breathe on you, spittle on you, hear you, muffle you, hold you, kill you.

pink/Brown

                                                                                      ^pink/Brown

Walking in the City with my Partner

Walking in the city with my partner I come to the number 2, a tattered, dull orange plaster sculpture that looms a meter over me. My partner notices her shoelaces are loose as we approach the figure, but I continue closer and stand in its serpentine shadow. Through the top curl of 2 I can see the skyline and blinding reflections from windows that divert the sun my way. Tracing its loop and drop, I come to the acute base with weeds and grasses at its edges as it sinks into the cracked sidewalk. I glance back to see a figure reaching to her shoes, one knee pinning her sunflower skirt to the concrete, her orange hair falling along her back. And, turning around to the mono(or is it dual?)lith before me, I note the upper loop is a broken centrifuge, a golden (or is it orange?) ratio that breaks its own monotony, escapes itself like the nautilus that peaks from beneath its shell, the sunflower that arranges its seed heads in the center to dance out precisely. That part of 2 could circle in itself endlessly, fractions within fractions, a wave that keeps rolling even when it doubles into itself and the water. Looking through the loop of 2, I also see a green sculpture 3 on the other side of the park, a double-centrifuge figure, doubly infinite, deeper. Do numbers only operate on the surface level, I ask myself while staring again at 2's flat base, the orange line that dissolves to concrete-gray in the corner of my eye. And I ask myself whether the base of 2 devalues it when compared to the unity (or is it duality?) or is it triality?) of 3, whether I want long orange hair or bobbed green, my current partner or that woman with whom eye contact was sex from afar when the way we lingered on each other became gross and indulgent, understanding and consensual. Even the breasty form of 3 is appealing to me without making me feel silly. I think of green hair and a naked figure forming its own 3, doubly centered, her nipples' bumps maybe resembling the center of sunflowers with their spiraling, perfect ratio—though that’s just a mathematical fantasy. As synesthesia begins to force itself on me, since the color and form of this 2 in front of me and that 3 across the park are now inseparable from their values, I remember my childhood and my mornings in classrooms with paper numbers scattered along the walls, the way beige 1 soothed me, blue 4 nursed me, red 9 defeated me, and bloody 5 haunted me. I may be falling out of love with orange 2 and into it with green 3. Still, between them there are as many divisions and degrees as there are infinite integers, a small infinity. I ask myself again if numbers only operate on the surface, and even add to that a question of whether the surface coincides with skin. To answer myself, I figure 1 is a reflective number that denotes both a singular value and valuable individual, and to which we all assign ourselves, naturally. 1 equals 1. 1 is 1. We are 1. I am 1. The number does operate on my level, extending out of its system and into my own. Actually, it's obvious just how unnecessary these reasons are, since the axiom is that everything is 1: all levels are the content of a singularity. 2 is the great unifier and producer. 3, a figure that refuses fracture, cannot be divorced, will not suffer fools. This is a digestible answer to my question. So if this small infinity between 2 and 3 also extends to me... can I even hope to understand where I am at either end of the spectrum, the sweetness of orange 2 to the hum of green 3, when between the two I can't even grip the endless, indecisive fractions? There’s an itch to walk away as she is tying her laces and hide behind that figure 3, either lie down on my back and curve my legs and torso to align with the bottom bell, or just stand straight against the portrait backside, the figure being 3-dimensional and thick. Because I'm absorbed in finding a way to connect the depth of me to the depth of these numbers, it makes sense that I should attach myself to 3, as it's the closest representation of nature's dimensions—but that begs me to attach to blue 4, which has always been comforting. And even then, a bloody 5 has even more truth, because it allows for another dimension I may not have heard of yet, and has the humanity of blood in its value, terrifying though it makes it. I'm fracturing, I’m a pink and brown fraction that is decidedly indecisive, whole but split, unsure of its favorite color. The thought makes me feel childish, but I'm already counting numbers so I ignore it. The green girl would be my third lover, I realize. I hump the thought. Limiting myself to the space between 2 and 3, though it's no limit at all, I creep along the part of nature that I've allotted myself by holding to each degree—the problem being each degree slips away from me as it dissolves into slighter, more fickle fractions, either forcing me to jump ahead or fall behind. Still, seemingly hopeless, this is a system of certainty that I've proven to extend to me. Hold on a second, comes from the ground, my partner behind me. A man in the field spins a small girl who is wearing heavy black clogs, and as some wind swirls grass in front of me he loses his grip and she flies away, spinning and sailing, her face finally scattering the dirt. The thud and yelp tear me from the sculpture to consider the green hair bobbing behind a hedge across the park. I hate math but it compels, starts me running across the field and hurtling over the child in the dirt, getting closer to the green girl even as she walks away from me. 

Crushing cigarettes on the sole of my shoe, point of seeping, contact.

Fuck Your Words

Your writing is so big! You look good tonight. Coldness makes you tense and flex, so hot. Your writing touches me!

I have my hand on your dick. Tell your friends. Nobody trusts something they wouldn't fuck, and to that I can say that I'd fuck your words. Fuck your words.