I was sticking with just Ursula’s voice for now—on both the consonants and the vowels. I had also revealed her identity in one of my book-length poems, which was invigorating, if not misleading. But her identity here, must remain a mystery because this book is about Ursula—the woman of my dreams, and, well, an election was taking place: would a blond come for me? Or would a darker woman come for me? Bleakness versus darkness—and, well, I considered myself a little dark—so it seemed that bleakness might have been a better match, given my desire for someone that takes life seriously. And why wouldn’t they? the person that we are in this life is a general indication of the person and the life we share in the afterlife—so that’s important. But nobody could top going with the president of the United States—a woman that would save me the current tab of 643 dollars a month for health insurance, making it impossible for me to save money for the future.
Ursula said the word love—and it seemed like the sound was coming not only from my brain, but also my heart. i love you do you want more or less of me? Very funny, Ursula. But who was i kidding? this wasn’t the Ursula I’d recently watched distributing turkey—creating content, shrewdly, i might add—with her rock and roll sunglasses; no, this was the person that balanced that person out—a combination of the both of us; the person that she’d be once she discovered me—and fell in love with my journey. The person that wanted to look forward to, and attend, events with me. In my defense, though, I must say that the Ursula I was talking to was a direct consequence of the exact Ursula that I was seeing on my screen after having merged, across time, with me. that person could tell me that they loved me—but could this person, right here and right now, also speak to me? This person wasn’t going to tell me they loved me—they didn’t know me, so, yeah, she loved me (according to me) but i don’t know how close she was to the person that was actually talking to me. She must have been close, or else I wouldn’t sustain the frequency, but i doubt that she was doing what I was doing, at least not consciously: using her voice to speak to her—and listening for specific voices when answered. I don’t think anybody on the planet but me was doing that—not yet, anyhow.
She wanted me to change her name from Ursula, i think, but I wouldn’t do that because it would have been unfair to the other woman—the one behind Ursula, that I’ll discover, when, like wayward souls, we arrive at the same address. Now, I have to admit, speaking with just Ursula’s voice was difficult because i was so used to using both our voices. But i was determined to tune in to the President Ursula, or, barring that, the Senator Ursula, or, barring that, the woman that would look after me and the children if a family ensued. But what about none of that? She wanted to know. So I told her that I didn’t see how that was possible, but, barring all that, well, if she accepted me and showed an interest in my work, then, well, anything was possible. There is always some corner of my mind that can rationalize anything—but, when I say rationalize, I don’t necessarily mean in a bad way—a rationalization, in many cases, is the answer to a question.
You get one life to live, and that life says a lot about who and what you are in the afterlife—the analytic continuation of this life—an equation, that is, that proves the rule. It occurred to me, or somehow Ursula managed to tell me without necessarily using her voice—save, perhaps, as a signature, that, growing up, she’d been lonely, that she never really felt at peace with her peers. And it occurred to me that that part of her person that remained undiscovered was still lonely, and, I figured, if I could acknowledge that, and understand that, then she’d love me even more. That’s what we all want, isn’t it? To make people love us—to be as important as we think we are? So there was a crack in the foundation, perhaps, and she, i don’t know, was getting around to it—thinking, all the while, that this was as good as it gets, and there was nothing she could do about it but express herself through her career—to take her career to the extreme—to channel, or sublimate, those feelings.
All I could hear, at this point, was some bald, blue-eyed white guy sanity washing President Jack Daniels, saying that he was both strategic and clever—a complicated man that, behind closed doors, would treat you with respect. That was anathema to me—I had a bad reaction, or, that is to say, i was very irritated and I felt strong feelings of aversion for this man, who, incidentally, happened to be speaking on a channel that had once been both progressive and fair—and that, now, for whatever reasons (such as being bought, for example, but it was more than that, i think) was turning a blind eye to evil. Why was I seeing and hearing this? He must’ve represented some undiscovered part of myself that I did not have a good enough relationship with—a person that I had yet to integrate with, that, nonetheless, was beginning to emerge. Through the bulk . . . and I thought, then, hey, this could be talking to me.