31

I have heard that some people don’t even call God a name at all, they don’t even spell GOD because that’s unholy and I think that’s a terrible lie and full of shit, but some people believe that.

Dear journal, I have never written down the name of my beloved to you. She has never been revealed to you, I have veiled her. Protected her, always. I refuse to share her name, her holiness, as well, is also great. Should I ever reveal her name, I should be stricken dead.

Only if she falls so far from grace as to abandon all hope of my love, would I tell you. But it’s not important to know. I call her nicknames, she keeps calling me the Shepherd. I think I like The Shepherd better than my own name. ///

30

She calls me the Shepherd. Kind of funny, really. Today she said:

“You should stop caring about things so much. You’re like a priest sometimes, like a pastor or a shepherd, that’s more like it really, a shepherd out all night trying to make certain even that one little stupid bastard lamb doesn’t run off and hurt it’s leg. Give me a break. Who needs all that? I’m gonna call you the goddamn Shepherd. Stop it. “

That’s how I remember it. She broke my heart at first, saying such terrible things journal, but I think now that she is right. I think now that I work too hard for others and that all of my waking hours I hurt for the souls around me. I want to touch them.....I should stop wanting that. There are other things I need to do. I can’t live my life pandering after God all the time, I have to do things too. I have my own things I like without God.

Be with me journal, we are taking a big step, hiding from God and going it alone. Away from the world of prophets for good, at home in her splendor. I will no longer go to the city to speak. How can I?///

29

She taught me an easy way to remember the Zodiac today journal:

The fire that dances. The shade of the rock. The stirring of winds. The lake at the sun’s setting. The flame that consumes. The shaking of the Earth. The quiet before the storm. Waters that flow over the lands. The lava flowing underneath. The mountains from dust. The rain that heals. The depths of the sea. ///

28

A week together - we are discovering now the perfection waited for. I made love to her today for the first time journal, her and I, flowing into each other, the river to the ocean, the freshwater to the salt sea. It was just how I imagined it, it was always meant to be. It was a clear afternoon, the sound of automobiles coming through the windows, the smell of skin on skin, the tastes, the tastes. Beautiful, it was as if I lifted her up through clouds, and she, in turn, raised me up, twirling my hair, staring through me, inside me, seeing me for all the hidden glory that awaits. Her body was a labyrinth of possibility, and I seized chance. I began my journey to find that holy of holies, where the priests go, where the veil is slowly torn from top to bottom and the world, with wide and afraid eyes, finds it’s awaited feast. Our bodies were not bodies - but conduits for our hearts to become one heart. She grabbed me, kissing my mouth and leading me into the bridal chambers, her my lover, to the place where my lover sleeps. We laughed, we spun around, knocking over chairs - and stumbling over each other we came to that clear paradise found only in the four letters called hope. I cannot believe it still journal, I am spinning and thought ceases, we see each other again tomorrow.

No more to say. She has always been the Other, the missing piece to an edict born in fire.///

27

The city is like the lover, and the lover is just like the city - that’s what I told her today. It makes sense, though it takes a awhile to put together.

Over the months, the years, the lifetimes journal that I have walked the streets, nothing seems more obvious to me than this. Both - lovers/cities - are full of hope, angelic, unrestrained, boundless, overfed with chocolates, poetry, story, song, and virginal they await for another to come and open them. But, they are also whores, they can betray you, and suffocate all with pillows still warm from making love. She did not understand this last thought, and raised an eyebrow and looked afraid. I smiled. “How can you think that? That’s the most terrible thing I’ve ever heard anybody say,” she said. Ahh hell, I thought. But she is still young and I explained it to her.

I told her how hearts are tricksters and how they see red lights and they see babies in carriages and how they get hungry, how they cry at an old photo, or an old film, or how they get lost in dressing rooms and look at mirrors and wonder what others would think, how they fall down several flights of stairs at a time, how they regret and sigh over the one who moved from them, how they light up when they are filled up in the night, how they breathe and cough from cigarettes, how they could dream it if they could sleep, how they are wrapped in too many obligations and fear the breaking of another of their own kind, and also how they devour their own kind like cannibals - hearts are like cannibals, I said, and in some parts of the world, you get stronger by eating your own kind or the heart.

And cities and lovers have hearts too, I said.///

26

Journal,

I talked to her on the phone all night again. I can’t stop thinking of her. She fills everything, she fills everything. I can’t wait to even hold her hand again and whisper my love, profess I guess I should say my love for her and tell her that it’s okay and that we can have a nice life with God together. We can share stories and kisses by candles and we can dream for the future. But I guess I should take it slow and not scare her, people can get afraid of me and my calling. Real slow, real slow. I will love her over stretched time as if she were a rose and I was a drop of water hanging off her lips fighting against the impedance of gravity.

So a rose for her then.///

25

She said YES!!!! I was so afraid to even ask her, I walked up to her and told her how I had seen her many times before, how she was glorious as the braids of Hera, how Penelope found her resurrection in those blue eyes, how the poppy and the daffodil were only chaff rolled away in her currents......And she first looked very afraid. I always rush these things, I always fuck it up. Still she listened, and her walls like Jericho fell - the reverberations of that breached barrier echoed across my dying lands. I smiled and in that smile I felt her gaze brighten and my eyes, they too brightened. I was forgiven. I was absolved and it all began again.

Does she love God? I don’t know.....I haven’t talked to her about God and about my calling, but I know she will believe, I know she will see my glories waiting to be revealed and we will marry and paint over these dirt monuments of past letdowns.

Can’t stop thinking about her.....so HAPPY!!!! OVERJOYED!!! JOY!! A long time since I have penned those letters together. We then exchanged numbers and she said, “You’re definitely unique...I want to find out more about you. Tomorrow then?”

And I almost jumped, but restrained my puppy body, and said, Yes, I’ll call you tonight. I talked to her all night, it’s like four in the morning now, no clocks though, so I’m just guessing. We’ve begun. Forgiven and released.

///

24

Journal - Do I follow her or do I follow God? I feel that I must make a choice. It is not fair that I should have to choose this. Not fair being alone. Alone. It is not right that I should be alone. I cannot be by myself.

I will take her then and journey, together, toward my completion. She will support my call. There is no other way under these stars. This alone.

I must talk with her. I’ve been waiting, now I must tell her all the wonderful adventures that will become of us, I know it. How do I tell her? Softly, journal, softly. I will hold her softly and she will know it without a word between.///