I once ended a story with the line, "Life is queer in all the ways we wish it to be." I didn't believe it, but wanted to. I wanted to feel swept up and light with the odd fabric of my life. I wanted to marvel at myself as an oddity, the players in my troupe a menagerie and the setting absurd. Yet, to still make an audience laugh! To spin these countless dancers and kiss them on the mouth with approval of roaring hands! That is how I pictured this all turning out. Myself, cheeks flushed from jumping, the cooling sweat chilling me under my tuxedo and a brazen smile to tell the world my heart.

I feel more squat than fluid and I feel as if I have done more harm than good. One canot wrap up life with saying it has been queer like we wished it to. We all want the procession of normalcy and goodness. We want nice and not kind. We want cuteness but not the devilish and we'd prefer the sleepiness to drunkeness.

So to everyone with faces dimpled with persperation, those kinky little martyrs who end the show in mid-dip of a slim waisted burlesque dancer, eyes fiery and hopping, I wish you well. Your summers will be fruitful and when you fall down, it will give you repose. The rest of us (I believe it is only I left, unfortunately) will make lists, eat the fruit in season, lose our jobs, look for apartments, call you drunk, and wish to be somewhere else.

Somewhere else, faintly east. Somewhere orange and where God has been long finished with. To be there, naked in heat, chest heaving. Exhausted with the thought of going back. Yes.