(no subject)

[danaeris]

I started walking and somehow, I didn't stop. My legs, once put in motion, continued to move as if of their own volition.

In the dingy darkness I treaded steadily along grey slab sidewalks, seeing SoMa as if for the first time. The night air felt somewhat damp, but it hadn't rained, nor would it that night.

The clubs had let out, but there were still some stragglers, too drunk to make it home or to The End Up with any speed. They spoke with each other loudly, oblivious to the residential buildings which had sprung up before the dot com bubble burst. A chinese woman waited for a bus that wouldn't come for another four hours while chatting loudly on her cellular phone. I found myself wishing I could understand what she was saying. Maybe she knew something I didn't. Or maybe she was just very patient.

I passed a homeless man, deep in slumber, and for a second, I thought I could see his dreams as if they were my own. Sometimes I see their humanity and my heart begins to break, my eyes fill with tears... and I pull back because its too much, too painful, and I must protect my sanity.

But there was no sense of the desperation I imagined in this man's dreams. In fact, his dreams, they could have been anyone's dreams. He was... just another person. Curled up in an entryway stinking of piss, clutching the sleeping bag as though it were a lover, he slept on.

I kept on walking, taking deep breaths of the city night, feeling the pulse of the place I called home. I was present, I was there, I was here, I was now. Air brushed against my skin, pushed lightly through my clothes and underneath them, caressed me lazily and indifferently. I was one of a million lovers it touched all at once. I was nothing special to that breeze.

At first I thought I was going to you, to hold you, to comfort you, to beg you to take me back and comfort me. But my feet had different ideas, ideas my legs seemed to agree with. Instead, I headed across town.

It's a strange city, San Francisco. So small and compact, you'd think it had one central heart. I passed city hall and laughed at that notion. This was not the city's heart. Nor was the Castro, nor the Mission, nor the Haight, nor the park, or anywhere beyond. There are places which are emphatically not the heart of this city, but there is no place that is THE heart, the one center and soul. It's not that San Francisco has multiple personalities. You might say it's a city that has lost its mind, but it makes sense in its own ways. No, I'd say it's more a matter of who you are. Essence of San Francisco is different for you, and for me, and for her as well. Your truth is not my truth.

My truth was speaking to me as I zig-zagged across the city. At the corner of Scott and Page, it said to take all my clothing off and go to Buena Vista park.

Now, my legs may have taken charge of this journey, but that doesn't mean I wasn't in control. It is one thing to wander around naked in your own home, scratching yourself, or halfheartedly masturbating for a moment here and there. Or even at the Pride or leather celebrations the city hosts. But the beings dressed in blue take umbrage when you wander around the Haight in your birthday suit.

I don't know what their problem is. Crazy.

But I could go to Buena Vista Park. That I could do.

Now, you may not know that Buena Vista Park is a cruising ground for hot gay sex. Unfortunately, I was not in the mood and my legs definitely had different ideas. And incidentally, I'm the wrong sex most of the time.

As I approached the park, I toyed with the fantasy that some beautiful man would approach me and offer to be my love slave. I would order him to care for the trees in the park and fertilize them with his masturbatory juices once a week.

You may think that the part about being naked was connected to these sexual fantasies, but you'd be wrong. The nudity was about feeling the breeze, the nipping cold, the dampness of the air, against my skin. It was about underbrush truly brushing against me, about rolling in moist, muddy grass. It was about lying on top of the hill the park rests upon and feeling the heat of the sun as it rose at six fucking a.m.

It was not about sex; not at all. Unless you're talking about sex with the city. It might have been about that.

I didn't climb to the top of Buena Vista that night. I sat on a bench and watched the city come to life as the sun rose. I watched commuters arrive at their bus stops, bleary-eyed, clutching coffee mugs. I watched shops open, and tourists arrive, shivering in their shorts and t-shirts, then emerging from the shops with San Francisco sweaters. And for once, I was so in tune with the city, that I felt as though I had also just woken from a deep and satisfying slumber.

If you hadn't called for me, if my heart hadn't broken for your pain, and for what you couldn't give me, I would not have had this, this moment with the city. And so I'm writing to thank you. Thank you for giving me this.


Criticism not desired. I'm way too out of practice to expect to be any good. :) When I get my finances and career in order, I'll go looking for a writing workshop and get my fiction and poetry back in shape. THEN you can all criticize me all you want. Although, I must admit that I kind of like this.