ManicDDaily

I’m taking a chance today, posting an excerpt from an old (and, at this point, very page-scattered) manuscript of a novel called INDIGO, about a couple traveling in India.  I thought of this after taking the above photo–yes, I know it’s  not aqua – because the manuscript includes several short segments that bounce around shades of  blue.  A few caveats – the manuscript is entirely fictional – in fact the voice below is even supposed to be a man’s; secondly – warning–there is some “adult” content.  

I am linking this to the wonderful dVerse Poets Pub Open Link night.  Thanks so much for you indulgence; sorry sorry sorry for the length.   

******************************************************

From Indigo -“Aqua”

Aqua–the color of water at my childhood pool, chlorine a somehow trap for sparkle.

As a boy, that blue crystallized all that summer should be, though now I think it was the lamps I loved the most–the pool open till 9–those underwater headlights set into asphalt walls.

In the sunset nights of early summer, their glimmer barely showed, but as the long days waned (though summer itself grew hotter and we stayed late), the lights turned brilliant, each disk radiating the white-embered halo of a magic cave or chest, or, as I liked best to imagine, a sunken porthole, which I, a creature of the true sea (some great mermoth), both battled and defended.

In India, this aqua–a kind of turquoise, truly–can be found in the North, set into Himlayan silver–though, to me, it will always be more of a Native American blue, house paint in New Mexican desert.

I keep wondering what would have happened if I’d gone South instead of East; if I’d taken to shooting those geologically raw mountains of Guatemala or Peru; that macho of green. 

But I came instead to these worn plains, crowded steps, thronged cities; came and came again.

Men hold hands in Delhi, Bombay, of course, here too in Varanasi, arms on necks, a caressing slide around the shoulders.

I’d like to think of aqua as the color of Helen’s throat, too light for Shiva’s. He inhales all the poison in the world, refuses to swallow, turns blue with not breathing.  It makes sense that his blue, so troubled, is darker than aquamarine.

Though she’s not breathing now either. I can feel the caught swell in her throat, the pulse and not-pulse. .

She won’t acknowledge it, of course. Neither of us wants to talk of any of this just yet, still thinking there’s a chance it will go away if we can just avoid mentioning it.

But the unmentionable nags, my mind picturing Tim’s hands between my legs, coupling my balls, a tremor of blue deeper than aquamarine, dyes that swirl in water.  When we meet him in the street, I ache even for the dark bristle of hair on the backs of his hands.

She wants me to just say no, as my entire chest tries to promise, while some other part of me–some careening crazy piece–silently begs him  to refuse any no that I might muster, begs him to make happen what I cannot begin, to turn my life into the dazzle of light on water, floating, irrefutable.

How clear that pool grew as night fell; how I wrapped my arms about the reverse shadows of those lights; how I lingered over them, submerged until I gasped, away from the humid darkness, guarding, loving,ide—I can’t explain it–she doesn’t want me to explain it.  While he already understands.

I feel like I am both dying and being born at once, that despair, that exhilaration, fear.

*************************************