Inner Babel / Babel Interior

Fish are mysterious creatures. Fish are elegant like their natural enemy, cats. Cats sway sensually. Fish are cats' prey. Fish are beautiful things. You can see them in oriental paintings and porcelain. In Brazil, we say fish die for their mouths. We say one has eyes of a dead fish, big eyes, slow to follow whatever is going on. And what's going on? I'd say if anyone knows what 's going on is fish. One tried to tell me the truth behind the origin of the universe or the secret for being ever content with what you have. It tried to tell me the secret of happiness.  I saw it, there, in a tank at the Indianapolis Botanical Gardens. You could almost see its brain underneath its thin skin. We looked at each other and it kept the fixed stare at me. It came closer to the surface. I took its picture and left. When I looked back, it looked at me yet, remaining close to the surface, the mouth outside the water like it still had hope to say what it meant to say. Had it legs it...

Be a lady Don't write about craving Don't write about desire Don't write about lust You look at yourself in the mirror and you remember your mother, not the  reflected image, you swim,you exercise, still... the words: "My self image is not complying with the reflection in the mirror".  You did not understand it then, you do now. You laugh, you remember your mom. You look at your naked self in the mirror and you try to be nice to the changes of time. You can like what you see at times, but what you see is not what once was. You tell your husband: "if I had a mind like this when I  was twenty I would have left no stone unturned". He smiles. You think of how self-conscious, how mean to your young self you were, how abusive you were to that reflection in the mirror.  You can still be mean, but you know so much more about yourself now. You write, you undress body and soul and you let the world know it cannot tell you what to feel, what to do....