In the cracks in the facade, vulnerability shines like the pink and tender light of a blue moon. Smile frozen stiffly in place, I press my hands to my wobbling face to close up the opening fissures. Outside this bar, strangers photograph the dusky night and all its flecked, foggy stars.
I have recently rediscovered one of my old pleasures—the vanishing act. I am asked a question and I pointedly do not answer. I change the subject, a little haughtily. When instructed to reveal the magic trick, I respond by chucking my white-capped baton at the audience. I snap at the spotlight until it turns off. I stomp off stage. The crowd likes nothing less than to be denied. Who starts a show and then leaves mid-act? The circle around me tightens; the thorns sharpen; but I turn inwards all the more fiercely; I cherish my secrets.
No, that’s not quite right. I cannot pin down this point, but I will try to approximate it, the way an arrow approximates eternity. Yes, I am secretive. I think keeping some things to yourself is the surest sign of a personality. Yes, I am a little mean. I will charm you into the garden and then push you into the ditch of Eden. I’ll stand over you, one hand on a hip, the other dancing along the long, green-veined palm frond spanning my torso. Next to me, the beast, that auditor of Paradise, wags his tail.
Spitting up dirt, you eye me suspiciously. Your wings are streaked with mud where they meet your body. If I help you up, it’s because I have a conscience, in addition to a mean streak. If I help you up, it’s because I have a mean streak, in addition to a conscience. How to tell you that I’d like to be a statue, rigid and unloving, with graffiti across my back in black and purple? Observed from a cautious distance. I’d like your company but I’ll freely confess—I’d appreciate your fear. We sit on the edge of the ditch and I talk to you about everything but what you most want to hear.
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