The Falling Tower

Posted on December 16, 2004 in Poetry Sexuality

I’ve been upstairs watching Memento, that strange film about a man with short term memory loss. In the middle of the film, as often happens with a film that I have seen before, I have been bothered into reflection. I have come downstairs to write about how my physical condition shapes who I am. Last night at a poetry reading, a Vietnamese friend asked me how he could find a woman. Me, the chemical eunuch, who has all but forgotten what it is like to be aroused, to have sex. This disease of mine that must be kept cornered with pills causes me to see sex as something mysterious in the mind of other people. To keep them from entertaining me as a potential lover, I joke too much about it. I call myself ugly so that I won’t attempt to beautify my face for the courtship of others. In my recent poetry, I have written about it — its shapes, its forms, its colors, its surfaces. But I see them more than I feel them. And to compensate, I joke about it.

My close friends know that I will talk about sex a great deal if given half a chance and the right environment. I don’t do it in front of kids, in nice restaurants, in offices. But give me a close circle of people I trust and I will go on about it. It’s how I compensate — see, I am sounding like Guy Pearce in the movie, repeating what I say — for a flat gland.

It has not been easy on Lynn living with a monk. We remain close friends and lovers in other senses of the word. I feel for her and don’t talk about sex much with her. I don’t want to see her suffer more than she does. So I do it in safe places. I have no sex life and they do, even if they are single. It is my way of feeling a part of human culture where I am left out by my biology. And I realize that my joking about it can be cruel. They could call me a eunuch and bring me to the near silence of personal reflection. No one does. Except for me. I grab the full right of saying “I am a eunuch,” often when I realize that I have pressed things a little too far. I am a eunuch. I have, for the sake of my sanity, performed a bloodless version of the rites of Attis. It’s OK. But there’s a theme to be explored here in a new way — beyond the stupid jokes I make.

As I said, I’ve written some poetry about sex lately. Some of it mocks the whole obsession. Some of it seems to mock others but read closely mocks me. I don’t like to talk about this, but it is the stuff of good writing. The issue here is not memory loss, but memory suppression. What was it like to be filled with those hormones when I was sad? I do remember. Now, what are the words….to contrast the two personalities shaped by their bodies, the high and holy tower crumbled in a ruin.