Cry In the Dark

Campaign 2016, cry in the dark # 487-1 (recorded in my daybook): “Paige and Meredith. Your thighs are soft and supple, your bosoms rosy. And you, Mallory, with the marshmallow skin. And Megan and Chloé and Madison and Skye. From Boulder and Portland and Loveland and Champaign-Urbana. You volunteer for Bernie Sanders and debate whether to deface your snow-white bodies with fashionable tattoos. Do I count for nothing? An agéd Hillary supporter with delusions of martyrdom by snowfall and rose petals, a political youth avalanche that buries my mouth and nose under idealism and college-age female flesh. I scent victory! Yet at the same time I suffocate in the rarefied air of dreams. Where is the beef, Bernie? Show me your toolkit for breaking up the banks. Are you a carpenter or a chiseler? Is the motor that drives your “political revolution” more than just a turntable spinning platters at 45 rpm in a 50's jukebox, in a sweetshop where coeds jitterbug after school to the groovy sounds of the latest protest song? Political showman and youth-revolution impresario, generator of campaign contributions and fake crowd electricity, stop teasing me with your cashmere-sweater chorus line! I have work to do. I must write, I must write another letter to the Times. The planet’s ecosystem is failing, crumbling about our heads like an avalanche, like an avalanche of college-age female flesh. God save me from the coming electoral storm.”

I weary of such pathetic cries in the dark. Board of Elections, deliver us a nominee!

(Written on the eve of the New York State primary.)