“The union of male with male is and must be sterile….”
There stood the embodiment of that which I find aesthetically pleasing. In him incarnate were those qualities that I have been desirous of since childhood, intricately manifested and no longer distant. And to my surprise, the circumstance afforded me the ability to bridge the gap, to interact physically with my Dionysus, he who transformed my morbid dreams into bacchic frenzies, effusing them with a quasi-religious sexual ecstasy. I imagined him to come from Gallic peasant stock, though time and distance were at work, in his mannerisms and speech one would detect traces of that naïf and rustic provincial origin. And I’d take him into my arms and suffocate him with passion, untrammelled lust surfeited.
Yet his fair complexion was punctuated by a light glow, colored by a light sunset, perhaps having spent some time under the caress of the father of life, he who man even in his primal state, has been able to discern and worship rightfully. Ah but this Apollo is cunning and sly, for he administers his affection to all. I find myself more me when I am touched by his rage, by his wit. Moreover, this boy embodying my desires modestly and simply, though without being bereft of majesty, possessed an air of change since the last time I had made his acquaintance, though to say that I ever truly made his acquaintance would be to deceive myself!
And my reveries fell instantly upon the concrete, shattering into bits and pieces, when he engaged me in dialogue.
“Hey don’t I know you?” he says. I stare at him uncommitted. “Aren’t you a Johnnie?” I detect hesitation and uncertainty in his voice as he asks me this question that immediately makes me feel as if I am a member of some mundane cult, one that I abandoned (somehow being able to rid myself of the Kool-Aid-induced stupefaction) yet for all I may try, am unable to escape. It is tattooed on my very being, i.e., the soul.
“Umm … sort of … er …” I stammer, almost as if compelled by some force outside of myself. “Yes!” I finally say with conviction and perhaps pride. I smile at him most graciously as I lose myself in the recollection of all the times I took notice of him prior to this moment. Every time that I saw him, I pained and ached. Those moments that were like a slap to the face, when he would be making his way slowly up Alameda while I sauntered at the point of drolatic skippying, flashed threw my mind, burning with the intensity of phosphorus.
I also recalled the shock I received upon discovering him at a place I had been invited to visit off campus! “You here? No! Impossible! Have you grown weary of torturing my mind that you must now follow me wherever I go?” I thought. “Ah but you are so beautiful! Oh do stand fast! Hah!”
“And you? … are you a Johnnie?” I asked affecting to have never taken notice of his existence before this interjection of time; every face on campus was familiar to me as I am sure every face was to him. Yes, I may have been a bit detached from life on campus, shielded behind a book or my iPod whenever I stepped outside my room, yet like the poet, I always took notice of those things that have the ability to inspire him to greatness and for this, these things are also great. Of course he was one of these things. Oh holy word! Jamais est-ce que j’aurai paix? Et on veux de la paix oui! Paix pour le monde!
“Umm … sort of …. Yeah!” he says, ostensibly confused as to his affiliation. “That place can go to hell!” he adds, his voice effused with excitement.
“I agree,” and we both chuckle. Yes. St. John’s can go to hell but hell is much more agreeable than heaven! Heaven is quaint, yet quaintness is banal and guilty of possessing a dearth of reality, it is injected with a stifling insipidity and monolatry that simply bores the intellect! “Well, I’ll see you around eih?” I say as I part, leaving behind my dream.
O Fortuna! With what facility you have supplied me with the actualization of the potency that is my dream! And I can revisit it as many times as I desire!