Back in a few weeks!

This boy and his seasonal hair, chartreuse green to maize yellow to vermilion, sprouting bundles of freesias. This boy is the descendant of Phineas Gage on one side and Mendel on the other, this clean boy strokes a proverbial beard from which vanilla orchids burst forth.

This boy, who subsists by the good graces of Japanese agricultural subsidies, spends sixteen hours a day rice farming. His brothers tie back his hair with twine and stuff it underneath a burlap sombrero, but still the bees and the butterflies, they come. His mother, bald now from a combination of anemia and a variety of fungal infections, wishes he could invoke workers instead of insects, or at least a pretty wife. This boy has black eyes hidden by hair hidden by fat caterpillars and bright spring strands, the wife, she never does come.

When this boy attends school in the summer, he is a running whip of orange hair against a rippling mountain, followed by a torrent of birds. He sits next to the girl from the Yamaguchi Prefecture, this deaf girl with fins branching from her head. This girl slices the shiniest of her scales to give to him, and in return, this boy builds towering flower arrangements on his scalp. They admire each other from simultaneous and symmetrical peaks, bicycling in the dark with a sea of fireflies in the boy’s hair. Blown glass fish and ikebana until the day this girl grows gills and is thrown unceremoniously back into the ocean.

This boy’s hair falls out in taupe gray armfuls as the squalls approach and the ships leave, hair left on snow beds, left on paddy fields. Migrating animals grab his shirt collar, a souvenir, ripping away blossoms and fibers, carrying their feel and shape to nests, to dump in caves where hibernating bears lay. What good is it to be left without the pleasure of a trace, a salt path, a carcass, a folded-up lightening bug, a dried fin? As if not having a past tense, as if not coughing back bones up, as if not reacting in pain, as if not screaming in love. This boy searches for samurai swords in rocks and maps fault lines, but neither he nor the Philippine Sea Plate choose to subduct, sinking is not the option they seek.

Telephones poles and paved roads, they come up, even to the hills where these flower boys live. This boy babies a rice bag underneath both arms, taking the slow scenic path, waiting for the train track lights to switch. Locomotion starts and stops for him, the conductor staring as this boy smiles, wind nabbing his sombrero, a wave of sparrows and wasps, light striking the surface and hair striking back, this soft green fuzz underneath.

There they are in the mornings, sprung from the mud of their forefather’s factory, a plum firstborn holding a string of rose hip sisters, rough mulberry brothers. Sweet-talking fire-breathers, bright as vegetable skin, intestines clean and dark purple, organs encased in endocarps. Feeders who reach into golden boughs, feeders of flower ovaries. Some, maybe a plucky baby or a pair of pomegranate twins, will live forever.

You stand in the front where you can be seen, carrying oranges in the folds of your hiked-up skirt. A sea captain leagues away will open his window and smell you. Your scent cures homesickness and scurvy, your scent makes summer month festival gypsies fall in love. None of your sibling’s superlatives fit you; you are neither the prettiest nor the wiliest, neither the snake-charmer nor the double-crosser. Pithy, you wake up the lime burner’s children and the tanner’s babes with your harmonica. They will wade through salt solution and rawhide to get to the citrus of, the citrus in your hands.

I see you sometimes, seated on school steps, when you are peeling fruit for the young. Your eyes are on the mountains, and your hair is in your eyes, and the pucker of your lips is steering you off-tune, you who are tone-deaf already. That knife finding the core, both mine and the orange’s, you hum hurruming jazz, a harp bop, double drums, alto sax. The juice that stays on my neck when you tip me back, catching me in an alleyway, holding me upright as the oranges tumble and strike the backs of my knees. You cup your strong-smelling, sticky-soft fingers around my ear and say let’s blow this city.

(b) The subject is a male adolescent of normal height and weight, well-developed body structure, no profound physical alterations. All evidence points to the subject possessing reasonably good health. Please allow for a marginal amount of error, as the obtaining of medical revision results is at this time highly improbable.

(c) Where the nervous system is concerned, the subject appears to have above-average reaction time and cognitive ability. The subject is capable of learning with considerable speed, prioritizing tasks, remaining alert for extended periods and extensive problem-solving. The subject’s somatic reflex arc is also fully functioning (the autonomic reflex arc remains untested). It can be assumed with sufficient certainty that the subject is, in a word, intelligent (we apologize for using this imprecise umbrella term, but we believe that further delving into the still-controversial realm of human intelligence is not necessary). Though the full capacity of the subject is still unverified, we are satisfied that the cerebral magnitude of the subject is beyond that of the majority of the populace.

(d) The subject’s visual perception is somewhat faulty, but has been enhanced due to correction devices (exempli gratia: eyeglasses). Other than the myopia defect, the subject’s eyes are otherwise satisfactory (the sclera is free of discolorations, and the melanin content of the irises has produced a pleasing color). Despite inferior sight, the subject’s audition, gustation, olfaction and mechanoreception seem to be in working order. The subject gives all the appearances of being a lively, sane organism. Were the subject a canine, we are of the opinion that he would make an excellent companion.

(e) Unfortunately, the subject is not a Canis lupis familiaris, he is a Homo sapiens sapiens. By Homo sapiens sapiens, we of course mean the subject is an anatomically modern human, not an archaic Homo sapiens, such as Homo rhodesiensis. We cannot determine what the subject’s genetic make-up is with any precision, as we lack the funds to construct a proper lab. In any case, it is improbable that we will ever be able to obtain a sample of the subject’s saliva.

(f) It is towards the subject that we direct the “affections” mentioned in (a). This indicates that the subject, a healthy adolescent male Homo sapiens sapiens, is the “limerent object” or “object for which we feel affection”.

(g) It is not possible to determine, without a direct consultation, whether or not these “affections” are reciprocated.

(h) A direct consultation would involve total self-disclosure, and the distinct possibility of rejection. It has been decided that the unilateral termination of limerence would be unappealing for both parties involved. It would also affect scientific proceedings, and is simply not part of our modus operandi, which is primarily concerned with utmost discretion. Therefore, it is out of the question.

(i) Data has been collected during a significant amount of time to ascertain whether or not the subject has his own “limerent object”, and whether or not that “limerent object” coincides with our own objectives (id est: what are the origin and nature of the subject’s “affections”, if these exist, and do they by any chance have to do with us?) Indications of “infatuation” include pupil dilatation (note: all attempts to approach the subject in his natural habitat with the objective of measuring pupil widening have failed), pallor, behavioral confusion, body language and, in severe cases, syncope. The attainment of accurate information has proved inordinately difficult, as we are prone to extrapolating from insufficient data, which leads to premature, subjective conclusions.

(j) Subjectivity is the enemy of any scientist, but it reputably a boon for all seeking amorous ends.

(k) We have also been analyzing the females within a certain radius to conclude if they pose a threat to our attainment of the subject our study. Though the gender ratio of the environment favors males, thus granting the females a wider array from which to choose from, there have already been three recorded instances of displays of amorous interest towards the subject. The situations we envision when considering the subject sustaining a relationship with another female involve severe disagreements, and are not what one could call reasonable.

(l) In general, our own bias has made this study excessively complex. Any neutral gesture or conversation involving the subject is recalled in detail and interpreted in totally illogical manners, often leading us to believe outcomes that have little to no empirical basis. Intrusive thinking concerning the subject begins realistically but often ends as a departure from the probable. We are embarrassed to admit that, in this case, intrusive thinking is synonymous with “fantasizing”.

(m) Progression towards limerent mutuality involves a delicate, generally maddening game of social fencing. Despite various double-entendres and neatly hidden exposés of “affection”, the attainment of the desired goal remains inconclusive and, to be perfectly earnest, far-fetched.

(n) We employ the clinical scientific method, we weigh mercury in silver tablespoons, we gut the wombs of dead sheep. Though alchemy was largely abandoned in previous ages of history, it is the only branch of science we can liken our study to. This is because something (and we do not know what this something is, which disturbs us greatly) very odd happens to our bone marrow when the subject brushes past us in the corridor.

(o) The feeling this slight physical contact provokes in us is decidedly unscientific.

Each and every girl believes she is the ultimate authority. She controls the three feet of space in front, behind, and to all sides of her! She makes all definitions in the fortress of her head, all the signs in the hooker of her body!

Each and every girl has a paprika-colored, octopus ink-staining heart and an eventual pap smear. She is neotenic, retaining juvenile characteristics in adulthood, choosing to metamorphose long after the arrival of her teeth. She is a carcinogenic, releasing spores into the air, be they poisonous, be they benign.

Each and every girl may never necessarily put away childish things. Sometimes she continues making and imposing her definitions on anyone who will listen, and a few who will not. Eventually, however, she will begin checking the gas in the middle of the night, learning to accommodate definitions of cruelty, space that is not her own, language of ripping and knuckle dusters and feather dusters. In turn, they will learn to accommodate her.

The boy takes in the selection once, twice, chewing one of his sweatshirt sleeves. His taste in movies is a statistically regular taste for males: Fight Club, James Bond, Sparta. Occasionally, though significantly less in recent years, he strays towards the statistically irregular for males: Before Sunset, Makoto Shinkai, Paris. Now that he has a girlfriend, he’s more disciplined with himself when it comes to romance. He’s embarrassed to have ever thought of lovers, and of loving, especially considering that as a college student he cannot be possessed by such adolescent flights of fancy. He can only be possessed by a schedule, and by his girlfriend, who gratefully assumes the role of his keeper.

The dog neatly steps aside as his master opens the door and ties the lead around his wrist. His colorblind eyes move towards the next obstacle in the obtaining of his dinner and soup bone: the three blocks home, filled with pitfalls only known to the astute canine. It is dark out, and the streetlights illuminate the sculpted rhododendrons in the garden of a house next door, where a girl will wake in the morning thinking of love letters.

2009, you weren’t much of a looker, and you kicked me in the ass when I deserved it, and a couple of times when I didn’t. Economically weighing the pros and the cons of 2009, I’d say this was the worst year of my life. All iffy fifteen years of it! Good thing, I guess, that you don’t weigh years that way.

I’m pleased with the things I learnt from you, 2009, like how superior plaid pajamas are to other varieties of pajamas, and how to deal with bipolar II in a parental unit, and how to write without over-using dashes and fragmented sentences and adjectives like “ebony”. I’m less happy with the aforementioned ass-kicking you dealt me, but hey, that’s how it goes, I guess. I’m sorry I can’t be “profound”, or mention anything “game-changing” (one of my father’s famous phrases) or “miraculous” that happened to me this year. I’d say I don’t really care about New Year’s anyway, it’s just a flip of the digits of an intangible number, but I’m wearing a party hat, aren’t I? Gotta live up to it, right?

I hope we can part on good terms, 2009, good in the “I’ll pretend I didn’t see you in the supermarket check-out line” way, good in the “no more goddamn croquets, Miss Applebaum” way. Yeah. Just let your buddy 2010 know that, next year, I’ll be dealing out the ass-kicking.

Outside of the car: road, and mountains that seem constructed, faulted and folded with full intent. The burst of a timeline, igneous matter compressing underneath welts of dirt, proving that yes, you are, you have been, yes, you are stronger than rocky engineering. Mountains here are low and complacent, letting green fester and producing folksy air for the tourism industry, placing the little traveler in it’s trust and wake. Mountains here are giant Repenomamus, are prehistoric mammal, and the places where a rolling plain flat lines a bony dinosaur-filled womb.

My father says that it’s not worth it to stop for tomatoes. He’s produced a map from somewhere only he knows, and is holding it to his face, nose brushing the monuments marked in red and the highway letters marked in bold. My mother is speaking in the voice that always makes me feel like I’m in trouble, like she’s discovered the pornography collection I didn’t know I owned. Someone, a female motorist, has tried to overtake her on the car’s left side, un punto ciego, she says, gesticulating and spewing a number of insults towards the foolhardy female. We drop off the highway, away from mountains and into more familiar territory, quaint factory and apartment territory, where my mother can loosen her grip on road and motorist and pull a hand back to adjust her dyed brown hair, her sunglasses. In quantum mechanics, enough experimentation will allow us to know what will occur when we observe a result. But we don’t ever really know what will happen until we actually observe a result, do we? Turning onto our street, my mother asks should we go rent a movie? more a recommendation than a question, evidently having forgotten the tomatoes. Un punto ciego, a blind spot.

Caminante, son tus huellas
el camino y nada más;
Caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.
Al andar se hace el camino,
y al volver la vista atrás
se ve la senda que nunca
se ha de volver a pisar.
Caminante no hay camino
sino estelas en la mar.

I am pretty much in love with the Spanish language. My mother would say that this is remarkable, considering the distaste I’ve regularly shown for other singularly Spanish things, like Spanish housewives and Spanish parties (both of the festive and political variety) and Spanish public library systems and Spanish slutty bathroom mirror pictures (OH MY GOD THE LEVEL OF OBNOXIOUS) and Spanish late-night soap operas and Spanish temperaments and Spanish supermarket dairy aisles.

Antonio Machado makes up for all that, though, as do Federico García Lorca and Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer and Vicente Aleixander and Miguel Hernández. I know that sounds dreadfully pretentious, like I’m some kind of beret-wearing, chain-smoking 1900’s CHILD OF THE BOHEMIAN REVOLUTION, sleeping in opium dens and defending all poets as divine creatures of the new century, but I like to think that sometimes you’re allowed to be a little pretentious. That’s what I like to think, anyway.

Soneto de la dulce queja, by Federico García Lorca:

Tengo miedo a perder la maravilla
de tus ojos de estatua, y el acento
que de noche me pone en la mejilla
la solitaria rosa de tu aliento.

Tengo pena de ser en esta orilla
tronco sin ramas; y lo que más siento
es no tener la flor, pulpa o arcilla,
para el gusano de mi sufrimiento.

Si tú eres el tesoro oculto mío,
si eres mi cruz y mi dolor mojado,
si soy el perro de tu señorío,

no me dejes perder lo que he ganado
y decora las aguas de tu río
con hojas de mi otoño enajenado.

Translated conveniently into English, Sonnet of the Sweet Complaint:

Never let me lose the marvel
of your statue-like eyes, or the accent
the solitary rose of your breath
places on my cheek at night.

I am afraid of being, on this shore,
a branchless trunk, and what I most regret
is having no flower, pulp, or clay
for the worm of my despair.

If you are my hidden treasure,
if you are my cross, my dampened pain,
if I am a dog, and you alone my master,

never let me lose what I have gained,
and adorn the branches of your river
with leaves of my estranged Autumn.