Jane the Modernist: Part I

[I wrote this a year before I graduated modeled after Robert Gluck's "Jack the Modernist." The language is a bit overwrought, but that was intended. I also used this piece to explore postmodern desire. Elizabeth Grosz's "Space, Time, and Perversion: Essays on the Politics of Bodies" also heavily influenced me. This is part of a series.]

 Further exploration is at hand, I sense—perhaps an exit from my current liminal state, but I guess whatever this voyage produces; most likely it will be a graduation to another plane-less arena. I am in my early 20s; could it be any other way? I’m not searching for stability, per se, but more of a fixed center around which events orbit. It’s not regression to the child—the I, I, I center of the universe—it is grounded in my desire to have my rococo be more than just ornamental stutter. To have the peaceful Zen at being at the center of the shell, (“the eye of the storm?” she offers, I say, “I never really like snow globes anyway”), while still being orbited by dips and crags and spires—all of which, when taken in a whole, produce a dazzling effect. My life is in the peripheral, unable to fully grasp the enormity (but I am in my early 20’s, I say, hubris marks my generation) Barely, just barely I climb through the labyrinth, looking for an axis, retreating, marching, a stuttering dotted line.

My latest arch to traverse will be her body. Have I intersected with her surfaces, ran my hands over the cloth boarders of some new, exotic land? Only minimally, I reply. In language I find my prejudice: “his” vs. “her.” His is “is”, the forward state of declarative existing, of puffed chest and “I’m ready” erect cock. Her is the “er”, a stuttering imposed upon me by my naivete, the unknown, the constant apologizing—can I touch? caress?  She answers me by putting her hands, arms on my hips.

This new love/lust is like seeing an old man buying flowers in a grocery store. It has the same profound joyous melancholy. (I want her to argue it's more "ecstatic" than "joyous", but this is just wishful thinking.) Same body, different vein. Whereas the new lover is like a cannon ball straight to the jugular, causing your chest cavity feel completely empty and aware, the old man is a transfusion to the arm. It passes its way around the body, simultaneously warming and cooling until it diffuses into the stomach where it then becomes black tar. We get drunk off this syrup--hurriedly wondering about your own mortality, our own momento mori. How far can we live in a day-to-day basis? I ask the old man, do you, in all your years of experience think that language can take us beyond a few blooms?
"Only when its uttered in sincerity," he says.


"Isn't everything I say sincere? I'm in my early 20s."

"Hubris," she reminds me.

My hand rolls up to her collarbone, her neck, and feels the scruff of newly cut hair. Our mouths meet in such a way that says yes, but I reply, can I? She slides her hand up my shirt and stops at my navel. She is surprised it is pierced. I tell her I am surprised it is pierced most of the time too. It is part of my history—I hope that she will discover through time. It’s the history that comes with being more than a one-night stand—but how could she not call after I bend my neck and sigh in such a way when I kiss her? How could she not see the complete longing in my eyes in this car, in this dimly lit parking lot? I hope the street lights will illuminate this a little. But, I tell myself, men have failed to see it in the soft glow of my bedside table, how could this be different?