janet wants a yellow mango, 2025

In desire, one is absorbed. Tangled.

The sense of agency vanishes, or you surrender, or you oppose.

All your adult life, one way or another, you build strategies to cope, to rule, to steer your own desire, and the desire of others. You are repulsed, and you are repulsive.

You are obsessed, and they are obsessed.

You burn, you clash, you cry. You chase, you search for fulfillment, you chase the image. You chase the body. You avoid the errors, you repeat the errors. You act on a subconscious level, just to let yourself rationalize afterward.

You dream, you touch, you are in pain and in sweetness. There is no midpoint. Buzzing and wanting never stop.

And one day, it is gone.

A dry land of not wanting, and not expecting. Of dry image.

****

Consider a desire for a yellow mango. “The primitive sign of wanting,” Anscombe writes, “is trying to get” (Anscombe 2000). Taking this thought to heart, one might hold that if Janet tries to get a yellow mango, then a yellow mango is what Janet desires.

*****

And there is the body

.The body gets cancer. You do not like this body.

The body gets sick, the body gets old.

You try to touch others, but they do not want to touch you.

They want to touch you, but you try to avoid it.

But still, you seek, you dream, you dive into the fantasy.

The idle game continues.

Finally, you choose not to.

*********

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.