It is dark outside, and I am lost in my own private purgatory.
The rain shatters against the thin glass of the window; the tiny droplets slapping against the clear panes before trickling down in tiny rivulets while the lightning paints silver zigzags against the dull grey of the overcast sky. I am lost in my own musings, wondering about life in general. The brightness of the giant screen in front of me flickers, it seems in tandem with the jagged lightning and occasional thunder that makes its way through the thick glass, the city laid out behind my back in amber puddles and silver glass.
You are close enough to tantalise me with a taste of your fullness; the acrid bite of your soft sweat tickles my nostrils, while the ripe perfume of your hair fills me with longing and desire. I can see a glimpse of crisp hair in the corner of my eye, and so too can I see your gently sashaying walk as I turn my head to get an eyeful of you. But you, wilful, cunning, seductive and purely a beautiful fantasy in my own head, are not even in the same room, building, city. I seek you everywhere I go, looking for you in the hordes that pack the trendy clubs all over Chelsea and Greenwich Village, Mayfair and King’s Road. I have travelled continents, gone to cities that I would never have imagined, and only occasionally have I found you, your presence lingering in a dark and seedy bar, luring me in with the idea of your symmetry, and leaving just before I get there. I clutch at straws, the barman sadly telling me of all the tricks he’s seen walk through his doors, before pausing long enough to hand me my standard gin and tonic, Rick-like, his warm and sweaty hand lingering too long over mine as he takes his payment. “Don’t wait for the love of your life,” he says heavily, the curly hair of his chest curling with droplets of sweat that show through the open checks of his undone shirt, “they never stay long enough to cause you anything more than pain”.
And so he leaves me, as always, in the darkness of my barstool, the bland bitterness of the Gordon’s biting into the back of my tongue, and I am left to contemplate the brutality of human emotion, of the sentiments that drive us to seek ever more meaning in our diurnal ellipsis of life. The snake always swallows its own tail, I muse, swigging ever-increasing gulps of my drink as my jaded eyes scan the dark solitude thrown up by the shadows in this, a bar like many other bars. Where and when you will be is a question that I can never answer, but it is one that I seek to find eternal responses to each night that I go out on the hunt. Perhaps the irony of it all is that the only immutable part of our petty and insignificant lives is in our hunt for immortality, that never-ending quest for love, longing, fulfilment and completeness. The snake will swallow its own tail, but only because that tail is no longer part of the same snake when it makes contact with its lips.
Is that then the bitter poignancy, the arid desperation of our lives? That we go out hunting for ourselves each night, condemning ourselves to failure because if we cannot find the person we were five minutes ago, how can we find someone else? That the snake swallows its tail, not out of any other reason but a desperate urge to find something, and only through this wilful act of self-destruction is it possible to find itself, to consume itself, its own essence, its complete being? Is that the ultimate aphrodisiac? I cannot have you, but I can consume myself, so that I am a giant star imploding in on itself, gorging myself on the sweet succulence of my own flesh, tasting the veracity and feral tanginess of my own life fluids in my mouth? Could I drink a case of you?
A Case of You
Just before our love got lost you said
I am as constant as a northern star
And I said, constant in the darkness
Wheres that at?
If you want me Ill be in the bar.
On the back of a cartoon coaster
In the blue tv screen light
I drew a map of Canada
Oh Canada
And your face sketched on it twice...
Oh you are in my blood like holy wine
Oh and you taste so bitter but you taste so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you
I could drink a case of you darling
And I would still be on my feet
Oh I'd still be on my feet
Oh I am a lonely painter
I live in a box of paints
I'm frightened by the devil
And I'm drawn to those ones that aint afraid
I remember that time that you told me, you said
Love is touching souls
Surely you touched mine
Cause part of you pours out of me
In these lines from time to time
Oh you are in my blood like holy wine
And you taste so bitter but you taste so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you
I could drink a case of you darling
Still I'd be on my feet
And still be on my feet
I met a woman
She had a mouth like yours
She knew your life
She knew your devils and your deeds
And she said
Color go to him, stay with him if you can
Oh but be prepared to bleed
Oh but you are in my blood youre my holy wine
Oh and you taste so bitter, bitter and so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you darling
Still I'd be on my feet
I'd still be on my feet
(Lyrics by Joni Mitchell)
