woman carrying a sign that said “ Piece. ” I hated that. I hated
it. But you cither had to be cowed, give in to the pig shit
behind that cartoon, or you had to disown it, disown the
dumb shit behind it. I disowned it all. I disowned it without
exception. I kept none o f it. I pushed it o ff me. I purged m y
world o f it. I disavowed anyone who tried to put it on me.
There couldn’t be this garbage between me and life; like some
huge smelly dump you had to trudge through or crawl
through to slide up against someone else who was also real.
And by the time you got to them you smelled like the garbage.
I said no. I said I will not. I said it is not on me. I said I may be
poor but I am not afraid. I said I want. I said I am not afraid to
pay. I said I will not shield myself. I said I will not pretend to
live life; I will live it. I said I will not apologize and I will not
lie. I said, if I die, I die. I was never afraid to die. I got tough in
some ways but I stayed soft inside the core o f m y belief where
there was tenderness for others, sometimes. I kept a caring
eye. I kept a caring heart. O ver the injury I still believed there
was love; not the love o f two but the love o f many. I still
believed in us, all o f us, us, if we could get free from rules and
obedience and being robots. I liked doing sabotage, I’m not
saying I had a pretty heart, I wasn’t a nice girl and I’m not
claiming it. I had some ruthlessness. I wasn’t easy to kill. I
could keep going. I wanted to live. I’m just saying I cared.
Why didn’t I kill him? Why didn’t I? I’m the most ardent
pacifist the world ever saw. And fuck meant all kinds o f
making love— it was a new word. It was fucking if you got
inside each other, or so near you couldn’t be pulled apart. It
was jo y and risk and fun and orgasm; not faking it; I never
have. It didn’t have to do with who put what where. It was all
kinds o f wet and all kinds o f urgent and all kinds o f here and
now, with him or her. It was you tangled up with someone,
raw. It wasn’t this one genital act, in out in out, that someone
could package and sell or that there was an etiquette for. It
wasn’t some imitation o f something you saw somewhere, in
porn or your favorite movie star saying how he did it. It was
something vast, filled with risk and feeling; feeling; personal
love ain’t the only feeling— there’s feelings o f adventure and
newness and excitement and Goddamn pure happiness—
there’s need and sorrow and loneliness and certain kinds o f
grief that turn easy into touching someone, wild, agitated,
everywhere— there’s just liking whoever it is and wanting to
pull them down right on you, they make you giddy, their
mere existence tickles you to death, you giggle and cheer them
on and you touch them— and there’s sensation, just that, no
morality, no higher good, no justification, just how it feels.
There’s uncharted waters, you ain’t acting out a script and
