Quietly

Quietly

While you were asking why
I was sitting or standing or being
quiet, I was quietly closing
doors, silently shutting
them, and the ones I had closed
I made sure were locked.

(C) Copyright 2005 by K. M. Camper

"Reaching across the Gulf" Part II

They lay sheets off in the darkness of dawn. A deep and profound calm had finally settled onto their two seas, now quickly flowing out of each other into their separate channels.

He looked at her, tried to look through her through her eyes. Although her eyes showed very little, he knew. He knew that she was clinging onto the moment, fiercely and tenaciously hanging onto this piece of time they had carved out by making a wave, a tiny ripple, with their bodies. He stroked her and grinned: he knew that she didn’t want him to speak, didn’t want him to disrupt the silence that she thought meant oneness. She had told him before that she hated words, because they had a way of shattering moments and being with.

But one had to come up eventually. One had to surface.

Their times alone with the drapes drawn eventually only focused on rushing and that rushing engulfed. There was no room for thoughts when the mind was overflowing, running over with sensation. Sensation took the brain and carried it off, ‘til before one knew it, one had already gone over the waterfall and now lay on the bank, first gasping, then breathing slowly, listening to the river you had just ridden churn. And that was all that was on your mind when you were riding the water: the river, its churning, and you trying to flow with it.

But once on the bank, the mind begins to empty itself of sensation and becomes filled again with thoughts, words, memories, faces, guilt, exhaustion, wondering, wants, shame, sticky, worries, the next day, itchiness, hot, pain, cold, yourself.

Now they lay listening to what he thought was the river, what she thought was a lapping sea. But it was neither.

He was still grinning at her, so she smiled back at him. But soon his grinning lips formed to begin to divide the air.

She shrieked inaudibly with her eyes, with her body and the color in her face, and she met his face to stop his speaking. And he began to churn.

(C) Copyright 2005 by K. M. Camper

They found him...

They found him bloated on the shore, his mouth, hands and eyes gaping.

For the drowning man,
it wasn’t the fact
that his lungs
had used up all the oxygen
in his air,
that his body couldn’t help
but gulp
the dirty ocean
‘til that was all there was in him,
‘til he was water logged
and bulging,
but it was the trees and the sky
receding,
the light, the sun and the land
retreating,
his arms and his hands upturned and open,
reaching
for what was more than air,
the water finally siphoning
him off from life.

(C) Copyright 2005 K. M. Camper

A Brief Explanation

So, obviously, if you have scrolled down and read the little excerpt of a story thread that I'm working on, you will notice that I in fact did not post some essay on some deep philosophical or theological idea. I had a really hard time coming up with something to write. And then when I thought I did come up with something, I feared being too didactic.

So, instead I decided to whore-out my work.

I don't know how I'll feel about this in a few days, but I think this is a much better jumping off point for further exploration. Because that's what I feel I'd rather be doing: exploring. Because the fact is, I don't know anymore than the next person. I'm mucking and mulling about, thriving for the same air, water and space like everyone else.

So yeah. Feel free to comment, react, respond etc. I cannot apologize for the content of the piece--neither for its overtly sexual depiction nor for its originality (or non-originality). One, I think art ought to explore sexuality, and more Christian artists ought to do it, because it is an important part of being human, and therefore one can garner a lot from exploring it through art (which for the Christian is a much more morally sound way to explore sexuality than to explore it outside of the context of biblical marriage). Two, if it smacks of something you've heard before, then know that all our lives we are constantly being buried by what other people have said, written, thought, and felt. It is quite the task for a person to dig beneath all of that to find his or her true voice. And you may find that your voice is a part of a larger chorus. This is to be expected. But how can you know until you dig?

So, here's a shovel into the dirt.

Or something like that.

"Reaching across the gulf"

She breathed in as he dove, plunged into her sea. For a moment, she held her breath as if she were waiting for something. But that moment soon passed and was washed up and mixed into a larger moment of sensations and feelings, flesh sliding up against flesh, lines being drawn all over her with fingers, he moving in and out of her, she moving on and around him, both moving over each other. The moment of trying to push together, of trying to become a part of each other, of trying to flow into and out of, of mixing. The moment of trying to reach across the gulf that one finds between yourself and others. The moment of working towards something singular and unified, one.

Breath and hair and breathing and sweating and spit and the white foamed sea flowing out, the slipping, the sheets, hot and dark and struggle and grasping and the entangling, trying to force and squeeze and push together.

Moans and gasping but no words. Words were not allowed, could not enter, could not help. Words hurt. They devastated. They didn’t put together. They demolished. Words were not fluid. They were chopped up into syllables and sounds with tongue taps and lips closing and teeth, breaths and swallowing. Words were always chopped up: each one was chopped up into meaning. And because they didn’t flow, if you tried to speak what you felt, what you meant could be chopped up and examined according to the pieces, picked and ripped a part. They would deconstruct, lose their meaning. It was because each word had a meaning and sometimes all the meanings didn’t add up. Sometimes the individual meanings, a single word, could subtract from what you meant. And you couldn’t control really control meaning or what words meant, either. We each learn the arbitrary meaning of arbitrary sounds from our parents. And even if you tried to own words, possess them, make them mean what you meant, how could anyone else know what you were doing with what was yours? They would just make your words theirs but still call them yours. They would molest them. And you couldn’t do anything about it.

And you couldn’t help but molest other people’s words either. You couldn’t help but make the words that other people gave you yours. It seemed to be a very human thing to do, to take and fuck what’s been given to you.

But even as she was trying to be fluid, they kept creeping in. She thought maybe if they shoved and pushed more, maybe the pushing and shoving would push and shove them out. Maybe if they kept squeezing closer together, there would be no room for the words, no room for them to breathe, no room for breath at all, no room for air, the air that allowed words to come. Air that meant space. Distance. Two.

(C) Copyright 2005 by K. M. Camper

A First Post and a Brief Introduction

It appears that this will be a time consumer. But hopefully it will be an outlet and good writing practice.

Why is the white mammary excretion spelled with an "e"? It's kind of a joke. Supposedly, I say milk incorrectly (and I suppose according to the spelling I do, but come on, this is English we're talking about). Supposedly, I say it like it has an "e" instead of an "i". So that's where it comes from.

This blog shall be a place for musings and rambles and rants. People who know me will probably be reading this, so it's doubtful that I will be dumping out the contents of my hearts onto these pages. One, I'd rather not have to deal with the mess that would create. Two, I have a personal journal to do that, thanks.

You may be able to see yourself in the posts (if you know me) but I most likely will not use your name and I will probably simply use anything personal as a springboard to talk about broader, deeper or more abstract things.

Otherwise, it will be anything goes.

Oh. And feel free to comment.

Hmm. Yeah.

The Melk Spiller