Simplicity ran around, wild through the streets, lifting her skirt and showing young boys the wonders of nature, then running away before they could leap on it. I suppose in this I both loved and worried about her. Spent constant hours trying to find her in the dead of night, summer and winter alike, putting off piles of homework, studies, and all they said I would need in life just to find her gentle arms. They taught the nature of taming the temptress, progress was her tears, her screams against the slavery the feeling of guilt we would have instilled in her.
"Shame her, disgrace her, watch as she draws ever closer to you in civility and abandons her pagan beliefs. The crow and squirrel drones to the coin, the light of a shiny new car catches the eye of any passing deer. Make simplicity say "dear" to you and you have simplicity caught and bound and never to let go, and the captured bird will be well worth the struggle the fight for her. Buy simplicity a drink but make her sip next to you in the bar, instead of wandering the streets of night. That way you won’t have to worry, wont struggle anymore, won’t find yourself in rage and jealousy won’t find displeasure in the pleasure of those who have chained her. Or spend the night in madness looking for her in the jungle, the alley, the bathroom at the tavern, the couch of your cousin's mate. Spit up your food in Lhasa, Jerusalem, she won’t find your spirituality smooth at all. She finds farming hysterically funny, camping in the woods a mysterious self made hardship. Your fisherman's village and quiet desert town, lose their charm too quick to keep her there long. Your idealism is hell, if happiness is found with her, than make her your whore. Taint and devour, toss when it’s old or less of flavor and buy a new one."
Yet as she dances across the street, this nymph who is so unafraid of yellow taxis. Who's warmth turns each little hair on every man and woman's skin so gently to her, like fall flowers in the sun grasping for one more spring time fling. She with stamina so great all young poets and adventurers have to stop for breath a dozen times during the chase, all to give up for the night, lonely and cold. She who's beauty alone brings joy, and anger, and exhaustion, and pride, and embarrassment, and all the world's feelings combined in a second, who leaves one smiling and crying and frustrated night after night. As I see her escape me again, above all these thoughts and feelings, is the passion the desire to keep going, the urge to live on. In the pleasure of pursuit one can learn to love all the things that give him the strength to pursue. She shows you the life of the world with each passing glance as she guides you through it, her warmth its love, her freedom its true beautiful state.
****this is one of my most shameful and yet one of my favorite things I have ever written. It describes so many things in such a short period.
The influence of patriarchy and feminism, the love of beauty, love, innocence, the desire, the lust, the excitement of adventure, the desire to find the meaning of life, spirituality, everything I love is in this poem…
Its wrapped up in this concept of wanting things to be simple, all the horrible ways they teach us to enslave when all we want is to be at one with this chaotic and beautiful world.
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