We Stand By Him
Bit of a story behind this prosy poem:
As I was cleaning out the house I had come across a short stack of old sketch books, ranging I believe from two to eight years in age. Losing myself in the nostalgia that was embedded in those meager and simplistic graphite and ink sketches, I had sat down on my bed and flipped through the pages, story ideas received from my past, when I came to one page that had four small illustrations of one character, this pretty, anarchic thing that was neither boy nor girl, a pale creature with nice hair and a decent butt, that chewed tenpenny nails and carried a baseball bat in a sheath like a sword.
One picture had him down on his knees, Alice in Wonderland stockings under a butterfly-wing skirt, belly exposed, tight shirt that just said "SEX," with Braveheart-like battle tattoos on his face; another had him leaning back, hair pulled down over one side of his face, looking like he wouldn't care if the world blew up, as long as he knew he could get a bit action beforehand, his tight shirt saying "BITCH;" another still had him a bit different, with grotesquely big anxious eyes, hair down to his neck with some strands blowing across his face, looking a bit too much like the girl from The Ring; the last had him giving a sideways glance, looking hurt, angry, maybe sad, maybe just thinking too hard, maybe all of these things at once, a hooded jacket with golden frogging, an evil rabbit design on the skirt. One of the illustrations had a caption that just said "Gentlemen, let's go." All of the illustrations had him go a bit heavy on the eyeliner.
I turn the page, and the boy is there again. This one I did in red ink, obviously with a bulky 0.7 mm uni-ball pen. The head is too big, a common mistake as I was transferring from furry drawing to Jamie Hewlett-like rip-offs. He's pissed about something, rosy lips set in a blood frown, his leather jacket lined with rivets and badges, one bra strap broken. There are lines beside him: "Fuck 'em. Take everything they've got. IT'S OURS NOW. The survivors can beg for it. They'll wish they never started this. They'll wish we end it quickly. They're going to understand what real pain is. This is our family, we are the people, and we are the world. Get Going. WE'VE GOT THINGS TO DO."
This Tank Girl-like wasteland whore was, if I can be one hundred percent honest, how I then envisioned just who I wanted to be, physically and mentally. I desperately WANTED to be this genderless hero-bitch that everybody either loved or feared, somebody that was good at talking to people and who could help everybody around them, and if you did anything to upset this pretty boy or his friends, you get a free trip to the bone specialist. This was who and what I wanted to be, but of course, the world in which I live in isn't the Outback Apocalypse, not a world drawn by Jamie Hewlett or written by Alan Martin. This pretty boy wouldn't have lasted for very long in our modern civilization, crumbling as it is; by comparison with today he's a little monster, one that wanted to break out of me and fulfill everything that I desire.
Memories of feelings just washed over me as I looked at this pseudo-portrait I had forgotten, and I almost broke into tears. I still want to be him, but there are no obvious starts and too many ends. We're too different--I have no communication skills and I'm terrified of the world around me, nothing at all like this...thing, which I think was meant to embody sexual power of both sides, and kindness, and confidence, and love, and just trying to be a damn good person in the face of unreasoning pessimism [I hadn't yet given myself over to existential nihilism when I drew those]. He isn't afraid of anything, because it's his world and he knows it.
With that information, this tiny not-story might seem like extroverted narcissism, but it isn't. I'm not him, I can never be him, as much as I admire him and his abilities. This is me telling him something. I don't know what, but I told him, and I think he listened.
We Stand By Him
We stand by him--this fay, pretty boy come from a dream to release us from the oppression we couldn't see.
We stand by him--this thing that we all once tried to categorize, to rationalize, failed; his was a path beyond us.
The air tastes like doom. The sand feels like powdered scorpion venom. There are a hundred of us, a thousand of us, and I've stopped counting even as more come. We are together, and that's what matters, and he brought us together, this Otherworld beauty. One line connecting countless spots on this devastated map.
This scorched earth doesn't feel like earth. It stopped being earth many decades ago, when a handful of people said the word "Fire." The standing strong swooped in and tightened their grip, rising, rising like something dark and filthy from the deepest abysses.
We stand by him--love and kindness are the drugs we needed, and he has been administering them since he came to us from the Somewhere.
Somewhere where there are fairies and spirits and eternal twilight. Somewhere that is warm but not hot, that is sweet but not sickly. Somewhere nice.
We stand by him--and there is no greater family.
They are coming. We see the armored personnel carriers as they roll up, crushing dunes and the things that might have lived in them. We hear the black helicopters before their beetle-black skin shimmers in the noon-day sunlight before us. They bear their insignias and ranks and titles like a marching band of assholes, and where once we were afraid we are now angry. They appear. We snarl.
They are here--there are too many. Much too much for us, and you know what? We don't care. Our presence shows them that they are not infallible, ineffable, incapable of failure. We are their failure, and we won't go away. They have weapons; we have weapons, too. I check to make sure all chambers are loaded, the names of lovers scratched into the barrel.
Five to one, one in five, and I visualize a five-pointed star above us, a circle to hold in and protect.
And he stands with us--he strides across the long barrel of his flagship tank, catwalk strut into the battle zone. He is wearing a pink pleated skirt designed to get caught on the wind and ripple to give hell to Tantalus. Panties flash, and we need no other flag. His black shirt is like raveneyes, two sizes too small, leaving bare a patch of his sweet soft skin, and his black bomber jacket is even smaller, like a second skin. His hair like chestnut smoke trailing in a short trestle behind him, rock-turned-to-air. We are all jealous of those black knee-high boots designed to dance on skulls, forever in contact with his young flesh. I desire him as I desire the universe.
He wears no defenses on his sleeves, no masks upon his face. What you see of him is what you get, and he never turns himself off for anything.
And he stands with us--his tears have long since washed away his makeup. Within those glistening eyes is something we have forgotten, something we lust for and want and need and hunger for, something we had destroyed long ago. His firm lips pout, but it is not a coy look; it is resoluteness. His face does not harden at what is to come, it just brightens as sunlight spears him.
When he shouts, we are together, and the infused roar of our voices and gunfire is a most thunderous, wondrous thing.