Night Report: Autobiography of Gold

On a bed of silk behind curtains of red satin, without looking away from me, a craving was sated…

I don’t mind being the one you steal from, the martyr from whom you learn: life can be lived and lived well. In fact I invite you to take what you can from me, consume and imbibe my lack of inhibitions — I’m immortal.

I’ve been everywhere recently. Mystic mezzanines with S.S., tropical pubs with D., lavish hotel rooms with N., secret grottoes with P., underground dancehalls with A., the surface of Venus with B. I know you want to know all about it and I won’t tell you. Yet.

New additions to my life include: a fat yellow sapphire on my pinky, a renewed set of royal jewels around my wrist, an increased dosage of Adderall, a death doula.

Things I’ve always had and am recently rediscovering include: a colorful Oscar de la Renta scarf, an ease with speaking Spanish, a knack for getting into exclusive nightclubs for free, an eye for the faults in our structures, mystic friends in high places, a power over people, and a heart to which love comes easily and abundant.

Jewel Thief is dead. Baby Brasa is dead. The Jane is dead. Mel’s is dead. The era of K.R. is dead. The “me” I thought I would be yesterday is long dead, too. Everything we thought we knew is no longer with us. Hold onto a feeling for too long and it starts to rot. The strongest selves are rebuilt again and again after being shattered to pieces against the cliffside of time.

One night this winter I went to four different functions, back to back to back to back. Indigo was in me. Critical mass before midnight. A rare blessing. Daddy Yankee, Pitbull, Beyonce. White girls loving it more than anyone else. Standing on couches! Now there are dancers standing on the speakers, wreathed in emerald and quartz. They’re swinging sheets of silk around which catch the light — and now they wear angel wings on their back as Rihanna starts to croon. The moon is halfway full above us. I’m in the middle now, right where I like to be, surrounded by eyes. Now they're doing tricks on thin ropes of white satin. Now I’m surrounded by boisterous Black women — I love it. They’ve never noticed me, but that’s OK. My mother overlooks me, often, so I expect nothing more from a stranger.

Would you kiss a stranger? Why not? What is there to fear? What do they mean, these goalposts of ours? Who are they protecting and whom do they inhibit?

Like Sappho said, come close; your desire is not so different from your fear; one must imagine God longs for death. That’s why their sleep is so heavy and we can’t rouse them from it no matter what we try. A night is impenetrable. On a bed of silk behind curtains of red satin, without looking away from me, a craving was sated…