What I Want (And Other Names Of The Beast)
By Paul Barker
In the corner of my eye there is a sentry. Ordered to alert me when in the presence of greater thans. When it does, a cord to my heart tugs and consequently stops the thing in order to prepare my body for the rapid increase in beating. Heart pounding, wet skin light blinded squinting soul beating desire. I am in the throes of want. Where we find the knives of envy. Like some dog headed serpent from the bible babbling names, the person who I am exits stage and directs the spotlight out a window. That focused light spills out into the empty void where all the nothing of want lies. It scatters and fades as I search in desperation, losing air and cutting off my mind. This object of my desire in the street, on my computer screen, hidden in between words in the conversation overheard in a restaurant – this is my new master. The Self is unworthy in its presence, and only in attainment can I wish to mend the Self to Higher Power. But it is gone before I speak. It dances away with a cutting grin. As my laced fingers close around the smoke, my soul torments at the loss. What has happened since the sentry in the corners of me alerted? A torrent of potent want rushed over me. Fragments of my soul are whipped off in the rush. I must be satisfied. I must have this thing.
Doctor Hannibal Lecter explains to Clarice Starling of the FBI in the thrilling scenes of Silence of the Lambs where Starling struggles to connect the seemingly tenuous strings of information in the Buffalo Bill case to the serial killer’s true identity, that she must find the most simple fact of this psychopath’s nature. What does he do? He covets. And how do we begin to covet? We covet what we see. Watch the movie, I shouldn’t transcribe here. Better yet – read the book. Like a normal secret psycho, I think about Anthony Hopkins’ slithery words often while going through my day. I click my heels down that cemented hallway and am fed words by the cannibal, he reads me. I am him anyway in the end. The isolated villain genius, repugnant and divine. Somewhere in that cycle of thinking is this nature of possession. This almost tangible element of replacement for fulfillment. What I want; its a full body emotional / physical experience that can stop me in my tracks. Possession. Acquisition. Ownership. Becoming. The names of the beast.
I was walking to the corner store near my apartment today after I got off the train on my way home from work to get some cold medicine because I felt one coming on. As I was waiting at the crosswalk for the white lit man to tell me when to safely walk, I saw something. It was tall. It turned me on, and I quickly began examining features. Shoulders, back, head, arms, legs, ass, clothing, demeanor. In about five seconds I had decided I wanted this. Something I wanted to possess. A banal wish for completion through ownership stripped me of my self and quelled the beauty of my being. This disconnect from humanity and my self seems shocking. A person became little more than an item to acquire. My body responded with physical sensation to this desire. I think of Lecter, and his taste for meat. This initial desire is intoxicating, muddled, impure. Where am I in this? I don’t ask where the other person is because the truth is they are a fleeting feeling in my life, and I will not own them. In my fantastic world of want there is no room for them – which is oppositional to the claim of interest. This truth exposes the farce in this wishing. It isn’t about the external, is it? So I am left with the fact that I genuinely feel a need to have a person. My hunger is a blind behemoth – its not reasonable. What makes a person so drawn to acquisition, what am I lacking?
Possession: owning or controlling something, or the state of being owned or controlled by something. When does this difference become distinct? Aren’t I, in the act of seeking or desiring possession, being possessed by this desire; in that it affects my will? Yes. The unhealed blemishes of youth raise distorted hands to be called upon for service. I am the host of ghosts, children from my past who should resemble me but don’t. The moments of my life stained with problems, glaze my eyes and move me with want. This is the harbinger of misery. I need a medium. I need to communicate with the spirits of discontentment – the empty stomach of a black hole. I need new science to explain away the eternal suck of consumption. Left with just my wishes, I will change course emotionally or tangibly because I feel a need to own something. Whether it is a person, or a new rug, or a drink, or x, or y, or z. Aren’t I walking around like Regan? When things get dark and wanting gets bad, do I not become a different version of my normal self? I get lost. The desire to possess chars the spirit and opens the serpent’s hole. Weird thoughts come into my head, Strange behavior floats to the surface, and it is often I am blind to the process. The Demon within opens its emerald eye and scuttles to the front of my consciousness. Morality, better judgment, sanity, scatters to the recesses. What was once important is given a back seat or altogether disposed of.
Sometimes to covet is blasé. It may not hurtle you into some vicious sociopath willing to do anything to attain your new bride, your new iPhone 4, or promotion. People are different. So we’re bound to not relate on a lot of this. The fulfilled may not feel this. I’m not sure what they look like, but maybe something like a well fed cat. I can’t speak for them ~ you figure out why for yourself. If you’re anything like me…nothing is enough. Enough is nothing. Your yearning for more is hindered by your overwhelming sense of inadequacy; the sky would be a limit if you could imagine growing that tall. Wanting is dangerous. It can feed your mind twisted fantasy to embroider your grandiose snapshot of tomorrow. When you will be pleased, relaxed, happy. And all you need to get there is a non-existent ticket to Neverland. You just can’t cut corners to contentment. Self-fulfillment is not in the heart of someone else. It’s not in a collection or a vacation or a child. Those things don’t deserve you. I need to respect. I need to respect the power of want and the object of that desire. In this selfish wormhole laid with icons and prophetic temptations in pictures real and imagined – the others are stripped. And who are you, am I, to lend such extravagant power of transformation to our wishing minds? Where does the thing you want end up when you have it? Does it even have a name? Is that name prefaced with My New? My New Lover. My New Apartment. My New Job. My New Stuff. Once it’s yours there’s no escaping. You’ll burn it up and throw it away. But its not your fault, you’re under the control of demons. So exorcize them. Wipe the soot off your disgusting world crumbling needy give it to me now, and breathe clean the air of whatever you’ve got.
You’ve had enough, Noah.