wipes you clean if you don’t die. I took everyone I liked: with
good cheer, a simple equanimity. There were houseboats,
saunas, old cobbled streets, huge mattresses on floors with
incense burning: long-haired boys and short-haired girls: I
knew their names: something about them: there was nothing
rough: I felt something in the thighs: I always felt something
coming from me or I did nothing: it was different: I had many
of them, whoever I wanted. I read books and took drugs. I
was happy.
I started to write, sentences, paragraphs, nothing whole. But
I started to write.
Slowly I saw: coitus is the punishment for being a writer
afraid of the cold passion of the task. There is no being together, just the slow learning of solitude. It is the discipline, the art. I began to learn it.
*
I lived in the present, slowly, except for tremors of terror,
physical memories of the beatings, the blood. I took drugs. I
took who I wanted, male or female. I was alert. I read books. I
listened to music. I was near the water. I had no money. I
watched everyone. I kept going. I would be alone and feel
happy. It frightened me. Coitus is the punishment for the happiness of being alone. One can’t face being happy. It is too extreme.
*
I had to be with others, compulsion. I was afraid to be alone.
Coitus is the punishment for the fear of being alone. I took
who I liked, whatever moved me, I felt it in my gut. It was
fine. But only solitude matters. Coitus is the punishment for cowardice: afraid of being alone, in a room, in a bed, on this earth: coitus is the punishment for being a woman: afraid to be alone.
*
88
I couldn’t be alone. I took whoever made me feel something, -a
funny longing in the gut or crotch. I liked it. I took hashish,
acid. Not all the time, on special days, or on long afternoons. I
took long saunas. I was happy. I read books. I started to write.
I began to need solitude. It started like a funny longing in the
gut or crotch. Coitus was the punishment for not being able to
stand wanting solitude so much.
*
I gave up other lovers. I wanted solitude. It took a few years to
get faithful. Coitus was the punishment for a breach of faith.
*
I came back to New York City, the Lower East Side. I lived
alone, poor, writing. I was raped once. It punished me for the
happiness of being myself.
*
I am alone, in solitude. I can almost run my fingers through it.
It takes on the rhythmic brilliance of any passion. It is like
holy music, a Te Deum. Coitus is the punishment for not
daring to be happy.
