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Tonight, I drive out past the city limits. Past the dried-up creeks and dusty fields of the Missouri\Kansas border. Up into the bluffs above the river. I am exhausted, my body sags against the seat. Ten-hour days at a cat food factory ain’t nobody’s idea of a good time, least of all mine. My hands are burnt to the point of blistering from the shrink-wrap machine. I handle the steering wheel gingerly, light a cigarette and drive a little faster. There is no moon tonight, only stars perforate the inky Midwestern sky. My mind stops and starts around the whispered misery of trip-hop and blues hallucinations that cry out in banshee tones. I push my foot against the pedal harder, just a little more pressure, just a little more speed. I don’t even bother looking at the speedometer, the interstate is nearly empty tonight. Catch me. Catch me if you can. I spend my days working and my nights walking, wandering and dancing. The weight of a prepackaged Walmart life eats at me day in and day out as I pack cans of Friskies cat food into cardboard boxes. My coworkers seem sedated, content even. I try to tell myself that this is life. This is how millions of people survive every day. This is the way it’s done. And every hour I feel my heart pumping a new scream into my throat. In the evenings I shed steel-toed boots and work pants. I stand in front of the nicotine stained mirror and carefully watch the feverish girl who resides there. Her skin is perpetually flushed. Her eyes are bright with heat and her lips are parted as if she is waiting for words to emerge from her own mouth but the words never come. She shakes her head as if trying clear her mind of a constant and heavy fog. Every night I walk the city for hours. There are nights when I wake up face down in a stranger’s bed or I suddenly find myself spouting drunken stories from atop a pool table in some rowdy dive. But at the end of almost every night I can be found sitting on top of a rusted-out boxcar watching the river until dawn. Once upon a time, I believed that there was revelation waiting for me inside the heavy churn of the Missouri. I sat still and I listened while trains rattled by overhead. I waited for years. These days I know better. I know that the river is just as polluted as I am. I have sat at the feet of teachers who held holy books and spewed interpreted gospels. I have looked into fragmented crystals looking for fortune or the hint of any future at all and have seen only the fractured image of my own skin on the other side. I have communed with the mad prophets of psychotropic substances and run raving into the rainy night. I have destroyed and recreated myself an infinite number of times laying out in the starry night in wait for a vision that, in the end, I must always create for myself. No teachers, no charismatic social leaders, no fucking gurus. I make my own way into every new dawn. I only know that I must find a way to run completely free. I will not survive the mind numbing monotony of the middle-class American life. So I burn, I am burning my body, my mind, my spirit and everything around me in ever widening circles. I am a living flame but the price for fire is high. I have begun to consume the tinder of my own spirit. And as someone very wise once said, you really shouldn’t play with fire when you’re made out of kindling. devil child The road slips past me so fast that I am unaware of anything but movement. The music fades to a dim wail. I grip the steering wheel with both hands and barely feel the throbbing protestation of my injured hands. I could close my eyes. I could fly through this windshield and just keep going. My wings adorned by prisms of shattered glass. I take a deep breath and pull my mind back from the precarious edge it dances on so often. I force myself to look around me. Almost there. I take my foot off the gas pedal. Peel my hand from the wheel. Downshift. Whisper slowdown slowdown slowdown to myself. I turn off onto a narrow gravel road lined with small trees. I force myself to drive slowly, carefully until I come to the edge of a small, unplowed field. There are more than a dozen other cars already parked on the edge of the road. I pull in at the end of the line. I walk barefoot towards a circle of light in the midst of the field. The ground has lain fallow long enough that it is almost prairie again. Long grasses sweep my fingertips and hips. All along the line of trees I hear the throb of cicadas. Fireflies tremble and glitter against the warm night sky. I quicken my pace almost imperceptibly as my mind begins to unwind itself from its heated coil. A small wind touches my face and I smile. As I grow closer I see that the source of the light is a multitude of battery-powered lanterns positioned in a large circle. There are about thirty people milling around, stomping down the grass within the circle. The sight of an already large pile of beer cans and glass bottles to the side of the circle gives me momentary pause. I stand for a moment, twisting my fingers through braids woven with ribbons and bells. I finally sigh and walk on. The drummers are beginning to warm up. They stop and start as they try to get a feel for each other’s rhythm. I hear the chime of a single set of castanets and look towards the sound. I can’t see the figure clearly because of the strange lighting, just sandaled feet pacing out long circles, not dancing yet but working up to it. I hear her voice as she calls out to the drummers, teasing, her words slurred and breathless. “Come on, boys. Get it on, boys. I can’t dance to this shit.” She gets rowdy male laughter in response. They drum louder but the rhythm is still off-kilter and awkward. As I grow closer I can smell the sweet overtones of marijuana along with a heavier, headier scent that I am unable to place. I see a girl I know holding a silver hand drum. Frankie is a small figure wrapped in a shroud of blue-black hair. She is kneeling at the edge of the circle slightly apart from the other drummers. A year ago I saw her as Ophelia on stage with a local theater troupe. Her movements were hypnotic. Her voice slow and singsong. A child more mad than Shakespeare ever imagined. I left the theater that night fascinated by her. A few months later I met her again at a rave and realized her performance had very little to do with acting. She was at once manic and anesthetized. She danced in slow motion, normal movements made almost obscene by the eerie underwater quality she gave them. I watch her now and see that nothing has changed. I begin to walk slowly towards her but stop when I see Latham’s wiry figure. He is crouched down next to a case of beer fiddling with one of the lanterns and a handful of batteries. “Hey boy,” I say quietly as I touch his shoulder. He whirls around, all tattoos and manic grin. “Sieannen! ” Anything but quiet, he springs up and grabs me around the waist. He picks me up and spins me until the stars are caught in a vortex above me. He sets me back down on the ground with a kiss on my forehead. I stagger from sudden dizziness and laugh. “Goddamn, you’re gonna have me passed out before I even have a chance to get myself fucked up.” I stagger slightly again and wait for the world to come back into focus. He grins at me again and runs hand over his stubbled skull. “Where’d you get all the pretty lights?” I ask, surveying the lanterns again, counting at least twenty of them, glowing from the beaten down grass. “My old man let me borrow them for the night. You like?” He looks earnest and childlike despite the python tattoo spiraling down the length of his arm. Despite the dark circles and too pale skin. “Yeah they’re great. And nobody can light their dress on fire in the bonfire this time, right?” I snicker and turn to watch the crowd begin to dance as the drummers finally begin to mesh with each other. Frankie catches my eye again, kneeling on the ground with the doumbek between her knees. She is bent forward, barely touching the drumhead with long fingers, more like a caress than a beat. Her hair has fallen forward over her face and her head is nodding slowly to her own internal rhythm. “You gonna drum or dance?” Latham asks, interrupting my private reverie. “Somehow I don’t think I’m up to drumming tonight,” I hold up my blistered hands for him to see. “What the fuck?” He takes hold of one of my wrists and stares at my hand. “Shrink wrap machine.” I shrug and pull my hand free of his. “Well then, I guess you’ll have to dance.” He steps back and cockily performs a deep bow. “Not yet.” I say, shaking my head. “I just want to watch for awhile.” “Suit yourself.” He looks mildly disgusted but offers me a beer from the case at his feet. I accept it and sprawl myself out in the grass. He sits down beside me and lights a joint and passes it to me. I sniff it like incense before smiling and leaning further back into the grass. I take a deep hit and watch some of my relentless tension spiral out of my mouth into the waiting night. We sit in silence slowly passing the joint back and forth until it begins to burn and singe our fingers. I pull my knees up to my chest. He carefully rubs the roach out on his jeans before storing it in his crumpled pack of cigarettes. He looks at me but I don’t look back. I stare at the lantern in front of me until my eyes start to blur and tear. “What’s up with you, Sieannen? I’ve gotten used to the mute routine but what’s with this sitting on the sidelines shit? You drive all the way out here just to admire the scenery or what?” He lies back in the grass with one arm behind his head. “I don’t know, I’m kind of worn out tonight,” I shrug. “I don’t mind the scenery though,” I say. His eyes follow mine to where Frankie kneels drumming. She’s a dim figure in the shadow of the drummer standing next to her. He turns his head towards me and smiles very slowly, all teeth. “Yeah. She’s a real beauty, ain't she?” He voice drips sarcasm. I look over at him sharply. “What’s your problem?” “Nothing. I just don’t think she’s your type. That is, unless you’ve changed your religion lately.” He lights a cigarette and laughs. “What the fuck?” I start, but then realize what he’s saying. “What? I’m missing the holy stigmata. Is that what you’re saying? Not enough of a victim yet for you two?” I pry his arm out from under his head with sore hands to trace track marks with a broken fingernail. “Yeah. Maybe so. Wouldn’t want to get your halo dirty, now would you?” He sneers at me and yanks his arm away. I lean over him until we are touching, breathing the same breath. He stares defiantly back at me. “That’s me, Saint Sieannen, patroness of junkies, whores and tattooed freaks worldwide,” I hiss against his closed lips. “Blessed are the stoned for they will inherit oblivion?” I lean back and laugh. He gives me a dark look. "What’s so damned funny?" “You’ve been hanging around rehab too long, little boy.” I smile thinly at him. “If you want either condemnation or another addict for your little club, I’m afraid you’ll have to look elsewhere.” I light a cigarette from his pack and take a deep drag. I watch a slender boy stagger away from the dancing to kneel and vomit through long blond hair into a bush. Afterwards, he stumbles back and continues dancing with jumbled and heavy steps. Next to him, a girl with spiky pink hair and a long tie-dye dress is skipping in place rather than dancing. There’s a violent spring to her steps and I’m almost alarmed by the face-splitting smile she’s wearing. Latham mutters something about more cigarettes and disappears past the border of light. I watch him go and then glance back at the nearly full pack of cigarettes still on the ground beside me. My eyes slide back to Frankie, she’s handing her drum over to a tiny blond girl who is wearing a wreath of silk flowers on her head. The blond girl removes the flowers and pins them to Frankie’s hair. Frankie pulls herself to her feet and moves slowly towards the dancers. Her steps weave a little, as if she is dreaming. She holds her head to one side and I see a small wistful smile on her face as she grows closer. The violet flowers crown long hair that sways and whips across her face as she moves. Her gauzy white blouse is open down to her navel and her jeans are torn in strategic shreds from ass to thigh. She lets the blouse slip off her shoulders and arms to hang loose around her waist. She turns her back to me and I see angel wings tattooed from the bones of her thin shoulders down the entire length of her spine before disappearing into the waist of her jeans. She’s hardly dancing now, just rocking with her arms wrapped around herself. She turns back toward me, takes a few steps in my direction and opens her eyes. She smiles when she sees me but I’m not sure if she knows why she’s smiling. I don’t see any recognition in her eyes. I see only pools of water gently rippling with an unseen disturbance. I realize finally that she is not looking at me but past me. When I look away from her I see that my fingernails are cutting deep red lines into my forearms. I force myself to relax clenched fists and breathe. Why do I worship these dreaming dead? As if the vacancy in those eyes connoted some kind of rest. I am so weary of my own consciousness, of the pressure inside me that constantly threatens to explode like fireworks or landmines. I find no serenity in work, in meditation, in poppy flowers or coca leaves. Everything I take into my body, my spirit or my mind is a victim of incineration. Tranquility is so temporary that it seems a waste to even seek it out anymore. I daily think of throwing myself into the river just to put the fire out. rave on, my children I open my eyes. Latham is standing above me, arms crossed over his chest, looking at me expectantly. I untangle my legs from my skirt and stand up, hands upraised in surrender. “Alright already, I’ll dance,” I laugh. He gives me a lopsided grin and heads toward the other dancers. I trail behind him. At the center of the circle I throw myself against his chest. My palms rubbing against his shoulders. The pain makes me lucid. My violence is both sexual and a warning. I lean my forehead against his throat. “You wanna dance, let’s dance,” I whisper. Years of formal dance classes never taught me this. Maybe this isn’t even dance. This is release. Not orgasm. Not pleasure. Release. Stars shooting out of my mouth and fingertips. This bone shaking rock of shoulder against shoulder, hip against hip. This is my fury speeding through his sick veins to shatter that delicate veil between his unreality and my desperation. His eyes are closed, his head flung back. He is a little boy again, blissed out with total acceptance of movement and touch. There is no desperation in him at this moment. He is just floating against me, satisfied to buffer my blows against the universe. I want speed. I want wings. I want to be airborne. I want my vision even if I have no idea how to seek it. Are there any visions here? Are we dancing children the only madmen and angels left to this sad and dying world? Is there anything left to us besides dancing? This writhing, wordless prayer that has become my only ritual, enraged as it may be. I don’t know. I am as lost as the rest of the world. I only know that I want this life. I want this Missouri clay beneath my feet and the wide prairie sky above me. I have cried for oblivion and yet I know better. I have asked for emptiness when I know that I am not even capable of emptiness. I fight against myself and lose. Rage burns itself into rain. I feel tears begin to spill down my face. I close my eyes and I spin. My body is spinning. The world is spinning around me. I feel as if I am rising out of myself. My arms out, pushing against the air with my hands, my head back and mouth open. The bells in my hair rattle and sing. Latham is suddenly behind me, his hands holding onto my hips. I am rocking back into him, barely conscious of anything besides drum and body banging together. I am possessed, driven, lost to anything but rhythm and skin. My breath grows ragged and hoarse. Minutes pass, hours pass. My eyes closed, my body trembling from the effort of non-stop movement. The beat changes and shifts around me, a few drums missing now. It’s getting very late. I pay no mind. Finally, Latham’s hands steady me to a stop. I open my eyes to look at him, still gasping. “What?” I can barely breathe but I am still frantic with need to dance. He wipes sweat out of his eyes with one hand. Rests his other hand on my forearm. “Come on. Break time.” His voice is slurry and deeper than usual. I walk mindlessly beside him. I don’t notice when he walks far beyond the border of the lit circle. When he walks all the way to the line of trees next to the parked cars. He turns around slowly. He looks me up and down with great deliberation. He reaches out to me and pulls me in. I fall against him willingly. This is hunger, pure and simple. This is both of us screaming wake me up, wake me up, wake me up. A small breeze cools the surface of both our skins. My body is still shaking and tingling from dancing. I lean against him and we fall together to the ground. His hands fumble with my skirt, tangled in it, trying to simultaneously push it up and pull it off. I pull a single string and let the soft material slide across the top of my thigh. His hand and his mouth seeking out the same place. His mouth on me, his tongue desperate and searching. I hold the rough surface of his skull in my hand and push him harder against me. He’s muttering unknown words against my now wet skin. My body is both tense with expectation and weary with exhaustion. I surge against him and fall back. I pull on his shoulders, urging him above me. I take him down into me. I scream when he enters me. I turn against him and roll on top. The sky falls apart above me. I find myself in a place where I cannot escape myself. I capsize all over again. I curse out loud. Fuck… Move into his arch. Lean down to kiss him, lips tearing lips apart. His sigh coursing through my mouth and down into my throat. I look down into the dark, into eyes I cannot see. The grass is slippery beneath my feet as I push against it. We’re both exhausted, both of us trembling with the effort of it. His hands pull me down hard onto him a final time. He cries my name and we collapse against each other. I lay on top of him, my hands on his shoulders, my face turned into his chest that rises and falls in quick succession, a slight rasp to his breath. My feet are still clenched against the grass. Digging my toes into the earth, I laugh at the tickling sensation. “What?” He mumbles through thick-sounding lips. “Nothing, nothing.” I hush him, kissing the ridges of his collarbones. I roll away from him and sigh at the feeling his body leaving mine. I lay in the grass next to him. I listen to the throb of drums as they shake the ground and reverberate off of dancing bodies. The lights seem unimportant and far away. I watch the shapes and colors behind my eyes. I am no longer seeking a pattern or coherent voice. Vision shapes itself into whirlwind and spirals of stars. I feel the grass under my body growing wet with dew and my own sweat dripping down to meet the dew. I feel heavy, sinking into the ground. Still listening to the drum but also to the way the ground hums and beats within itself. The sound of growing, I think. The sound of the green pushing up through the rich earth. I dig my feet into the dirt. I arch myself into the ground. The smell of sweat, grass, and earth is intoxicating. His hand reaches for me again and feels me push hard against the ground. A tiny moan escapes my mouth. He sits half way up and looks at me, although I know he cannot see me. “You are a strange one.” His voice husky but quiet. I say nothing. I lay still and listen. I am calm for once. Not satiated, but temporarily content to feel my body simply exist. Latham slowly pulls himself to his feet, I hear the sound of clothes being pulled on and a zipper rasping in the dark. He stands there for a moment saying nothing. I hear him clear his throat. “Hey. You want another beer or something?” I look dazedly at him. Shake my head while I fumble with my skirt. He lights two cigarettes, offers me one. I take it and he stumbles back toward the light, the drums, the dance. I sit still for a few minutes. The cigarette burns unheeded to a stub in my fingers. I listen to the heady song of cicadas and crickets all around to me. A small breeze cools my sweaty face and I lean into it. I slowly stand and follow him back to the circle. Frankie is sitting on Latham’s lap next to the still growing heap of bottles and cans. She looks up at me and gives me that same wistful smile. Tired and dreamy. The flowers are slipping to one side on her head. Her shirt is back up over her shoulders but the buttons are crooked. “Hello, Sieannen.” Low, sweet voice. An actress’s practiced modulation. I lean down to straighten the circlet of flowers but it immediately falls over her other ear. “Hiya, girl.” My own voice sounds distant and echoes in my ears. Latham smiles up at me and offers me a swig of something in an amber tinted pint bottle. I accept the bottle and take a good pull off of it. Fire. Thick, pulpy fire. I grimace and hand the bottle back. “Strong shit, huh?” He looks pleased with himself. Frankie sits up slowly and wrinkles her nose. “I think it's nasty. I can’t believe you guys drink that trash.” I wonder how old she is. She looks like a sleepy-eyed little girl tonight. “Don’t let me forget my drum, k?” She pokes Latham with a silver-ringed finger. He mumbles vaguely in response. He looks as far gone as she does. I sigh as I watch them both nod off into dreamland. Frankie’s head falls back and the wreath of flowers tumbles off her head onto the ground. I crouch down and pick it up. I hold it in my hands and run my fingers across the cheap silk petals coated in glitter. I laugh quietly to myself as I put it on my own head. I lean over and kiss Frankie’s eyelids. She murmurs in her sleep, still smiling that wistful smile. I walk away from the circle. I walk until I can no longer see the firefly glow of the little lanterns. I kneel down and I lean my head back to watch stars that pulse brilliant and unsteady in a clear sky. I spread my arms and fall backwards onto the soft ground. I clench my fingers around long, whispering threads of grass. This is the beginning of me and this is the end of me. Circle back and begin again. This is the dream and this is the waking. My flames grow higher and consume each other. No river could ever put out my wildfire. moving slow ©2004 by Sieannen Bell Sieannen Bell is a poet, artist, and naturalist living in the Gila Wildlands of southwestern New Mexico. Previous publication credits include Stirring, Wicked Alice, Eclectica, and Megaera, among many others. She is also the editor of The Divine Animal. |
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