My First Lip Kiss

All love begins with a pursuit. Meditate a moment on pursuing a potential lover. The apple of your eye. Some courting might be involved; a period of wooing. Moving later, to gentle and well-phrased coersion. Walking hand-in-hand under the moon. A steadily, sensuous advance. Upon closer inspection, I have found Pursuit to be more forward. Pushy. Pictorally, he would resemble the Greek god Priapus: fully erect and chasing his female desirable until she must rescued by wood nymphs. I offer another image: The fore fathers penning the infamous Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness. One hand is rapidly composing the manifesto, while the other impatiently holds an eager gun. Ready to hunt happiness down and get a piece. It's no accident I compare these images: an erection and a rifle. For I want it to be clear, Love's Pursuit is not the dreamy, romantic striving, but a more aggressive chase. It follows, that in my picture of Pursuit, running could be expected.

In the third grade I was diligently pursued by an obese boy who could pick his nose with his tongue. You think it's an exaggeration, and I wish I could tell you it was. The fact is, he could be counted on to have a free-flowing river of snot cascading down his upper lip at any given moment. Every so often he’d lash his tongue out to clear the way for more mucosa. An upper lip can only accomadate so much, you know.

Recess. A time to run free and hard. In the playground, Love's Pursuit drove throngs of eight-year-olds divided in gendered groups, to chase each other. Obsessively. And with the kind of exuberant joy that is born of teetering on the edge of eminent danger. For forty-five minutes all you could hear were high-pitched squeals. Masses of little girls would sprint after the boys, suceeding in taking a few hostages. The hostages would be locked up beneath the monkey bars. In response, the males would band together in the name of freedom, and turn the tables; sending the front lines out to run after the girls. On one such chasing mission, I was hunted down by the bugger-eating fatty. I squealed like I never had before, and haven't since. The thought of his faucet protuberant terrified me. So, as hard as my little legs would let me, I ran. I ran and ran. But, alas, I could not hold my lead and was caught! The horror! As per the terms of my imprisonment, I promptly received a wet and sticky kiss on the lips. The very first kiss of my life.

There were more annoying, and equally gross boys that pursued me throughout elementary school. There were more wet, ill-placed, and predatory kisses. I thanked each show of affection with a swift kick to the groin. Of course, I had no idea the potential damage I could do by assaulting a developing scrotom with my sneaker. I reveled in the dread on boys faces when I threatened them with the possibility. Kicks to the Balls got me the best reaction. And were most likely to thwart an unwanted smooch, and send Pursuit in search of other prey.

Child, the Peace-Killer

I was twelve when I started the war.

It was 1996. The year Dolly was cloned, the year Centennial Olympic Park was bombed during the Atlanta games. It was the year the Yankees won their last World Series, the year a football star named O.J. Simpson killed his ex-wife and her friend.

I remember that summer, not because it stuck out for any monumental reason, but because it didn't. I remember it because it was my life, our life, before the great war. The only war.

More history. It was the year NASA became aware of microscopic life forms on a rock hailing from the planet Mars. It was the year my father was made SETI Institute Principal Investigator, and it was the year the Galthians chose to extend their four-fingered hands to the human race.

It was the year I killed the first alien ambassador the Galthians sent, the only one they'd end up sending. Nathrang was the only chance we'd been given, and after I killed him there was nothing more of peace. I know I'm supposed to say I didn't mean to, that it had been an accident or some kind of giant misunderstanding. I know that's the only thing anyone wants to hear, but it isn't true. It was no accident, not then. It was no misunderstanding. I wanted him dead, and though it seems unfortunate now, I cannot deny that I killed the little alien in cold blood.

If only someone had been there to stop me, if only. The thought's gone through my head so many times, only recently I've started wondering. If someone had been there, would they have stopped me? Or would they have taken my place, pulling a knife from the cupboard (as I did) to carve their guilty name (instead of mine) into the Galthian's childlike body?

I have to think so, now, in light of what has happened. That not only did the aliens choose the wrong house to send their ambassador, they also chose the wrong species, the wrong planet. War might not have been inevitable, but it was probable. Likely, even. I can't hold myself responsible for all of it. I can't do that.

Neither can I live as anyone else. This life is mine, but the death I'll experience will be the death of billions.

A Statement**

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Life is played on a series of stages. Some are sought after, pined for in early morning hours as the sun stretches up over a fresh sheet of ice. Some host hours of painting, sculpting, writing, or stitching, and are toasted by flutes of Champaigne. Other stages, forced, like the harsh rapping of a subpoenaed fist at your front door. The stage you are shoved onto, when your boyfriend yells at you in the dining room, and people pretend to keep eating. Stages you walk briskly from; the hard glares from strange men on the street. Gliding along as such, star of your life, pursued by uninvited audiences, might you wonder where the stages end? These stages may prove relentless. Everyone expects that toothy grin to remain on your face long after the curtain closes. No use crying about it. You’re not even famous yet. Where do you want the stage to end? Your mom just read that one really big secret that you posted on your blog. Do you think some live their lives desperate to have their insides seen? Validated? The lithe dancer shows us her ligaments, the memoirist tells readers her story, the lovers give each other full access to the insides of their bodies. Where do our own insides end? We are constantly being undressed in other people’s minds. Perhaps nothing truly protects us. Where are the boundaries? Is it at the skin, where our insides end? With the peel, the undergarments, the casings? Do they end where we say they do? Do they encompass other people? Do they end when we fail to recognize ourselves? Ask these questions of yourself. Ask them again and again. In perfect circles or broken patterns. Over the course of hours, days, weeks. Years. Ask them in your bedroom, on a street corner, on the biggest stage you can find. Shout them at strangers. Write these questions on your face. Pour a giant bowl of them and make your friends stick their hands in and squish around. Watch their reactions. Look at the expressions on their faces. See? Those expressions!
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** I am building a website for myself as an artist who makes work to be seen in non-traditional art-viewing spaces. If you don't know me, it might help to know my work can be at times intensely personal, humourous, dark, and strange. I liked this as a statement for it's provokation. I found this more engaging than a more explanitory statement, and less invasive than a deliberately personal statement. Comments are welcome. Thank You.

Novel Introduction

This is a true story.

All of it.

My name is Adam Holwerda and I’m about to be killed. The pages that follow this one are three years full work, by five different men. Four of them are already dead and I am the fifth. The story of our project has been leaked, to those who would rather see us die than to see our work come to fruit. I do not know how this has happened. I can no longer trust the publisher I’ve been in contact with, and so I’m sending this letter and the following attached pages to every major and minor publishing house I have in my address book. If indeed my previous publisher has been faithful, then I am sorry, but very soon it won’t matter much anyway. What is important is that the story gets out, so that I and my brothers may not die in vain.

If you are reading this, then there is still hope in the world. Hope that truth still stands up against power, that minds remain open while all other venues are closed. If you are reading this, then you will finally know the truth about Ivan Gildrick, whether or not you feel you must believe it. My instructions to the publishing houses insist that they must market this book as fiction, and to keep my identity anonymous. But know, now, that this work is not fiction, and that I am a real man – no imagination created me but my own. Soon I will bleed, and it will be my own blood. My first name is Adam, and that is important. That is real. I have included in my instructions a surname, the one I wish them to use. It is the one on the front of this book, and I’ve chosen it because I never had a surname, and this one is rare enough that I won’t be mistaken for anyone I didn’t intend to be. I am not Adam Holwerda, but I claim to be. That is the only lie, the only fiction.

I’m about to die, and you’re about to read the truth. And if I can believe that there is a chance this will all work out, I can die with a stamp of satisfaction on my soul.

Let them come.

First Line Monday!

Welcome to a fresh start! Here are some quick first lines -- an easy and fun way for some quick writing and brainstorming. Sometimes a story comes from them, and sometimes it's just cerebral pushups. Either way, enjoy, and I'd love to see yours.


Grandma Flora loved to read the family's tea leaves at breakfast on New Year's; she'd not only gotten two spinsters married, broken three bad engagements, encouraged Homer to buy a watchdog, she was making a bit of cash on the rare occasions her darjeeling told her which pony at Bay Meadows to put her money on.

George sucked in a breath and looked doubtfully at the bag, which seemed awfully light for $3000.

"It's not fair! Last year Stevie got to see guillotine, the cockfight, and the ambulance chasers. Why can't I go see the mudwrestlers today too?"

Howard hunkered down beneath the table, trying to be as still and small as possible, but his tail wagged in spite of itself -- soon someone would drop something, and Howard was sure it would be one of the triplets (just learning to eat with a spoon), or Uncle Joey (who had been drinking spiked eggnog without the nog in it).

I actually met my soon to-be-ex-husband in court, but everyone thinks we met on that wine-tasting tour of Napa.