in lieu of lying down in traffic on sunset boulevard

in lieu of lying down in traffic on sunset boulevard i consider the bright yellow and spiked shoes of a passerby with short curls who shouts into the air at no one i can see and wonder where she is going and whether those plasticky weapons can really get her there. and i turn myself around in a few tight circles just because and i sing a Springsteen song under my breath that’s grim but proud and i savor the sorrow i indulge myself a little and sniff mightily and feel the mucus rattle around like monkeys in a barrel—did you ever play monkeys in a barrel, in lieu of expiring i remember monkeys in a barrel—and i drink a bottled coffee protein shake which might make me sick before the day ends. becoming sick, at least, is an experience. the office air is too cold. when i open the door i slam full speed into a wall of heat so thick it is a challenge even to lift my foot again and press onward. the office air is too cold. when i cry at my desk the tears develop a gelatinous quality where they linger on my cool cheeks. these too are experiences. so in lieu of lying down on sunset boulevard i shiver and i may become sick. for the whole city is under fire death hell weather, cold dinner weather, sodden titty weather, bright red weather, practice for the end weather. i’m sticky again. i’m waiting for it to pass again. we adjust the fans again. in lieu of self-immolation i remember my girlfriend in repose, eyes closed, small smile, warm skin, perfect, viewed from above, god, thank you. my wrists ache when i hold myself up with them in bed, the softness of the mattress absorbing my hands like quicksand and i think, why, when my arms are strong—or strong enough, or all right, totally normal arms for carrying things, they do fine, thanks—then why are my wrists so weak? a failure of formulation. a miscalculation. junk science. bad parts. i have had forever, all this time, unusually bendy joints that pop and stretch. a body is legos and taffy. a body is the outside and the inside. i wish the gum i swallowed as a child really was still in my stomach. a talisman or something. i warred against this body too long and when the hate rises like bile now i feel ashamed. i ought to feel ashamed. i am revealed then as a lower being. too old to cry over my thighs. too old to think that shrinking my body to make like it is some other body, some fictive bod, will make me better. happier. more confident. more able to act upon the visions i had once for my life. less afraid. repaired. i know to be thin won’t make me better. nodding, i say, i know to be thin won’t make me better. but it was something to do. rituals can be very gratifying to the seeker. i worry i will always seek. cathedrals everywhere for those with eyes to see, she says, with her face in the porcelain bowl, reeking, and knuckles knocking on back teeth. well. not anymore! obviously, truly, i’m just saying perhaps i miss the habit. abolishing aberrant behavior has not yet curbed ill-mannered desire. perhaps, in lieu of the habit, in lieu of obsessing over growing small, i should grow bigger. literally, physically, spiritually, sexually, fundamentally, intellectually. what are the other kinds of selves? i’ll grow those ways too like a prized pumpkin. yes, perhaps, in lieu of going away, i should come back. i should come back to life as the old me, like from childhood, like from birth. but not quite. not small. i could be a monster, a giant, a golem in my own life. of the golem, Jewish folkloric figure, Wikipedia says “it has been used to connote war, community, isolation, hope, and despair.” war, community, isolation, hope, and despair. i would find something more interesting and inspired to say about golems and the prospect of making myself into one except that i read war, community, isolation, hope, and despair and i think that’s my cell phone. i have all that in my cell phone. so perhaps i won’t become a living omen. i guess that won’t help at all. in lieu of such transformation i should be loud and fill the room and buy gifts for my loved ones and make something. probably most of all i need to make something. make a painting. make a cake. make my way up a steep hill. in lieu of going down to the silty bottom of a water body somewhere and thinking all of my thoughts at once until no thoughts and then no thoughts and then no thoughts i will let out a long breath, longer, really empty her out until my body hangs in its chair like an inner tube on the last day of vacation, crumpled and saggy but well-loved, useful, ready for more when the time is right, and then i will think about spotting constellations when so many times you couldn’t and didn’t and lied but now, as if hit by a bolt of lightning, struck dumb, you do, you do see them up there, and kissing til your lips hurt and the moment when the heat breaks and limes and lemons and popsicles and summer tomatoes and weird fireworks at sports games and soda water and Megan watching Downton Abbey right now as I write this and hating those English freaks and texting me about it and mornings when you wake up well-rested and the hamachi crudo we had in D.C. this month and AMC A-List and being pressed up so tight with another that the boundaries blur and it’s such a relief to forget where they begin and you end and in lieu of the end, by the way, in lieu of stopping, in lieu of flowers please send fountain Diet Coke, okay, in lieu of fighting off a stubborn sadness listen to “Cat’s Cradle” by Harry Chapin and let it all tumble over in a spectacular flood of feeling. in lieu of despair, consider horses, how they seem almost supernaturally understanding, kind, consider touching your toes, consider clean laundry and how they re-introduced wolves to Yellowstone National Park, and it was an immense success. in lieu of that dark thing in the corner, please send Diane’s fluffy blowouts in early episodes of Cheers.