I’m in love with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. That in itself should be enough to put me on the list—you know “the list.” Here is a person, full of vigor and life who speaks in sentences. What is she, twenty-nine, and already hated and demonized as being a commie, extreme left—“don’t hate cause you ain’t me, fellas,” she responds. Anyone not in love with her should reconsider.
Anyone who knows me knows I fall in love easily with anyone alive. Trouble is, we live in a time of the walking dead. Everywhere I turn, there they are. Mindless gobs of flesh wrapped in leather, without souls, blind and deaf—but not beyond redemption the poet says. No one is beyond redemption—that’s the point. Even George went to the church and apologized, asked to be forgiven—even Wallace.
It’s never too late to dance.
I play my dance & sweat playlist. Starts with Wild Cherry—play that funky music, white boy. I get up and dance, work out the stiff back muscles, shake it down while facing the morning sun outside my window. It’s never too late to fall in love with whoever and whatever is beautiful, even if it’s just the sun shining through.
I pour a fresh cup of coffee—bubbles of foam pop up on the surface. I eat toast and fresh olive oil. Rub the left-over oil into my face. It’s Friday, thank God we used to say. Though I admit when I taught at the university, I looked forward to Monday. Still on Wild Cherry—I feel sanctified. I dance some more.
I’m in love with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but I’m also in love with you, he says. It’s taken me my whole life to learn that love is chi, an energy that flows through every particle in the universe, acutely aware. We are all simply focal points of energy, he once said at his father’s funeral. And as focal points we fall into the trap of thinking we are alone. It’s a trap—a fear trap. We clutch, thinking somehow we can maintain—but focal points are only swirls in the current. The current is the reality. The swirl is a dance in the current. Enjoy it. Let it go.
I’m in love with the pick-up make it take it basketball we played in Gregory gym at lunch all those years ago. Skin and sweat. You’re one of those hard core little white guys, David says and smiles. Not much talent, but competitive as hell.
I take a breath.
I’m in love with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez because she embraces what should be and insist it could be. She is youth pushing aside the brain dead gut of old age. Wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with age, the poet says. Mostly we fall into cliché which is just another form of meaninglessness.
Love,
Brady