Still-Life

When I was thirteen, I fell for a magnificent older woman - let’s call her Lilac. She brought wondrous and bold light into my life with wild colors and her kisses that—to me, at least—tasted like the most exquisite ice cream. Mint-Oreo crushed with toffee and graham cracker bits. But Lilac – oh, she was sweet and kept her chestnut hair in a bob, and her lips were always a pouting poppy red. I see her in her classic parlor, a view I’d absorbed a hundred, maybe a thousand times, surrounded by lots of earth tones with her eyes resting – definitely not closed or shut. Resting. 
She had curves and ample hips, an angular face, a long neck and behind her sat pink peonies in a crystal vase, and a tiny black kitten curled up at her feet. She sits on a peach-colored sofa and her legs are crossed so adeptly, precisely. Since I first arrived here, I was told by a kind human with a gentle voice— a female psychiatrist, I believe—that to find clarity I must jot down every thought I ever had on a yellow legal pad with a stubby pencil, no matter how ridiculous or silly. On that first day, I wrote: It’s a stupid painting, you blathering and pathetic pervert - you’ve been chatting up and French-kissing an oil painting on canvas for a few years now - it’s not real or alive, you lecherous twerp. You’re in weak psychic shape these days, Teddy, pull yourself together before they start selling your brain for scraps at that old junkyard in North Haven.
But another part of me thinks of faith and hope as I scribbled, I was on the debate team in seventh grade so let’s be scientific and rational about it. I mean, isn’t it possible that L is just an understated lady with her many gifts and attributes? That she is just shy and more modest than most, and not a big chatterbox?
Because L and I do get along so well, and yes, we flirt, and you can’t argue with that kind of instant attraction, correct? She is a beautiful and magical lady. Sounds like a recipe for success in everyone’s book, so don’t question it too much. There’s a real legitimate bond developing here with L and myself. Give yourself a break for once, okay, Teddy? Shut down all the negative questions and monkey mind and celebrate this new woman in your life with all the love you’ve got left inside.
A soft female voice then asks me more about my cerebral cortex, that mysterious, squishy percolating gray matter in my skull 24/7. I told her I believed there was something off with my psyche as far back as nine years ago, when I was five. I gazed into the sky and saw warped shapes floating on by, like 500-foot-long alligators, and chubby rhinoceroses copulating together, or battle unicorns as kids say. The rhinos rested on puffy clouds - two pointy-headed prehistoric monsters doing the horny, horizontal thing. I saw wildly contorted sea cows being led down Fifth Avenue for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, trying out bloated manatees as possible floats for the following year’s jaunt.
One day, both Lilac, the lovely lady and L, the sexy painting, flew up into my face, rushing, whirling, surrounding me with their kisses at the exact same time, and whispering sweet nothings, too, and for a time they even shook bare-assed upon my mattress like Go-Go dancers, multiple breasts bouncing around me so magically.