“We are all meat, striving to be human.” — Neha Choksi, 2015

“We are all meat, striving to be human.” — Neha Choksi, 2015

There was a moment when Neha Choksi was going over her work this past week that I felt a deep well of emotion spout up. She was explaining her installation, Everything Sunbright, the layers, time, years that she’d put into it. How it had formed/come together/gestated&arrived on its own terms. It’s body intact, imbued with every hand and voice that had created it.

I h3ld my ch3st.

country country negril jamaica where i spread my father.

Cold

by

Kim Hyesoon

translated by Vanessa Falco and Kim Sunghyun

It was like I was inside the black-and-white photo of you looking back.

We stared at each other from different worlds.

It was always cold inside this photo of you.

Trees stood all along the river, coughing and coughing.

Whenever I opened my eyes, I was climbing a snowy mountain.

I would barely turn a corner and find fields of pure-white snow,

and an infinity of precipices jutting out beneath sharp cliffs.

There was an evening when I looked into your eyes, wide like a frozen sky.

In the village, a rumor spread about a ghost who would return to spread a fever,

so smokestacks shook their bodies helter-skelter over every chimney.

I drove you out completely. Now none of you lives inside me.

An avalanche shook inside my chest for over an hour.

When the trees coughed and snow fell off their bodies,

icicles shot up violent in the empty valley.

I sat down on a frozen bench

with my lips trembling and the wind across my face.

I wanted to get out of this place – this photo of you looking back.

“I’m the one who saved you from the ferocious butterflies.”

02/03/19

“I’m the one who saved you from the ferocious butterflies.”

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INT. LOS ANGELES CAFE - LATE AFTERNOON

TORRENTIAL RAIN. WASHINGTON BOULEVARD.

The rain sounds like chains at the window of the small sparsely furnished cafe in the mid-city of Los Angeles. Everything is wood save for the glass coffee decanters and large gleaming espresso machine that sits like a jetliner on the counter. Altogether the decor is another version of Scandinavia - Haute Ikea'd Los Angeles once again.

MAN - EARLY 40'S, MIXED-RACE - enters, shakes off the rain from his jacket, sees WOMAN - EARLY 40'S, GERMAN - seated at the window on a low wooden bench, already sipping her coffee.

Man goes to the counter to order. The BARISTA, young tattooed woman, steps over.

MAN

Do you have teas here?

BARISTA

Just the three: a black, earl-grey, and a floral.

MAN

Which one isn't too strong?

BARISTA

I really enjoy the floral, I think you will.

The Man nods his head, goes to the Woman at the window, takes a seat.

MAN

How are you?

WOMAN

Tired.

MAN

Me as well - How is work?

WOMAN

Good - Our submission won a prize for a park in Latvia. Everyone is excited.

MAN

Congratulations.

WOMAN

We don't know if they'll build it, but it will be something if they do.

A beat. A short, silent conversation about: their bodies, how they feel heavy, radio waves around them like ocean currents, their hands, sex, both wanting to be held.

MAN

It will be okay...After. It will.

WOMAN

I just want it to be over. Right now, all I think about is being away from the girls, not seeing them every day. I am a viking, you know. I'm not afraid.

The tea arrives.

CLOSE ON: Glass Jar, tea leaves swirling, a tornado.

On Union.

I went to the theater last night with a friend who is about to go through a divorce. We were late. The show was sold out. So we walked through downtown, peaked our heads through fences, talked about the specific magic of theatre lobbies, how the carpet is always deep, lush, holds your feet through your boots.

I’m sad and excited for her. Divorce is something. The change is everything.

It dwarfs you, swallows you up, but after -- when the veil is lifted -- it is gone. Forever. You see it all.

Two days before, I met a tall architect who was about to go through a divorce as well. She was asking her mother to move from Germany to help her with her two children. It was a Friday, late in the day. Rain all over Los Angeles. The PCH was shut down above Malibu. The 101 stacked.

Her coffee was so thick with cream, it appeared like chocolate, and as she spoke, vented, opened her heart to me, the rain outside increased, really came at the windows, and I watched the chocolate congeal, come together as she asked me to be honest with her always, to stake our friendship on it.

‘I’m a viking,’ she said. ‘I need this. I’ll take it.’

We would make love twice a month, she said. Until everything was over.

^^^

On Sunday, I thought of Pale in Burn This, the play by Lanford Wilson. I thought of those scenes. What they would mean today — Rabe, Mamet, Wilson all addicted to ‘fuck’. Language as violence. Language as body. Language as the patriarchy telling you their language is important, that the ennui of broken white men is of note, stageworthy, what counts.

The late, great Philip Chapman put me in a full nelson when I was playing Pale. During the scene, he had the lights turned off in the studio — a blackout, then him around me, spitting, whispering, screaming into my ear --

“Get to that woman. Don’t you love her? Love Her.”

At the bar with my friend, I spoke to her about how much I want to disconnect masculinity from the patriarchy for my son. How I want to redefine his connection with his body, how I want him to celebrate his growing arms, his growing legs, his whole body. I want him to run fast without a care in the world, for him to jump through waves, dance like it's his last day on earth.

--WR