In The Time of Being a Tick

(Forest Engulfed in a Passing Cloud, 2009)

I was a tick once, it was far away from now, when the world was covered by long blades of grass and deer and wolves roamed the earth along with the other animals. People think of ticks as bad things, blood suckers, they’d say over and over. It is true, I wanted your blood, I would sleeplessly wait on some nights, waiting, dying for your blood, but blood is different for ticks. Blood is our one and only love, like exquisite foods, drinks and fancies you humans enjoy, blood was that! There were different flavors of blood, even from dear to dear; each had its own different push of salty pitches, different textures from different viscosities. Like Inuit people have a hundred words for snow, blood had many different meanings to ticks, though we never used words, our thoughts and ideas of blood were the same for humans for different fruits. We would live in one area our whole life until you would come along; take us away like adulthood does for children. Our lives were decided by the steps you would take. We would burrow deep within your hair, seeking the warmth and cover of hairy legs would provide. We would take slow steps when we got close to your pulsing skin, the only thing soft and tender within this forest of hair. And then without your permission we would come close, and closer, and we would kiss. First starting with soft kisses then a sexual current would take us as we bit down. Did you feel me kissing you? My mouth will suddenly fill, blood sinking my valves, expanding my core. I was filling up, being overwhelmed by you. Did I have the heart for this? How were my lungs doing, I’m getting too heavy, I must stop, but how? I am sorry I had to dig my hands in deep, I’m sorry I made you irritated. I was too much, I took too much, but I only took all that you gave me. You didn’t know, you would never know of this love affair. And just as fast as I can to be with you I had fallen. I hit the ground, full of myself, and bounced. I quickly hobbled to a blade of grass and sat there, fat and wasted, on the base of my new home.

You were all I could think of, your rosy skin after we kissed, that beautiful red blood. I wanted only you and you alone for the rest of my life.

Over the days and weeks to pass I grew smaller. You filled me so well I didn’t need any other thing but you. It had seemed like years since I last saw you, how long have I been living here at the base of this blade of grass? I was finally light enough now so I decided to climb up. At the top I waited for you, I waited and waited. Then when I was done, I waited more until the yellow-green glow of the grasslands faded to black. On some nights I would fight with my thoughts, telling myself you were never going to come back, that you were a million miles from here, being kissed by others. I demanded silence in my head, and silence was given.

The days felt longer without you, unplanned, and alone. Love has always been a funny thing with me, it was something of mystery when the moment of love would happen, and I would be so overwhelmed by the feeling I’d forget all about the world outside this feeling, the same world that gave this indescribable feeling a name. It is only in the moments after this feeling, sometimes another life time away, that I would know that I had felt love, that it wasn’t a dream, it was real.

The wind blows and I sway the same way the frame of a kite would, attracted to something greater than one’s self. I feel the might of it all, the air stinking with energy and the cicadas are singing the song of summer. And the only thing I could think of is if you can hear all of this, to feel it all, and see beyond these grasslands where we first made love and smile because there are no words for this indescribable feeling.

In the time of being a tick, I wait for you.

(I waited a while to post this, about a year, which can only mean my head isn't in the right place, it just might, very well be, still on an island somewhere in the Pacific, and to you stranger, you're not off the hook yet! Expect new words soon, how soon, idontknow.)