II: We Made Love Inside of My Rainbow

surrounded by our spirit kin.

Did you know: Vipers have long, hollow, retractable fangs that fold back into their mouth when not in use. This allows vipers to have exceptionally long fangs relative to their body size, which can deliver venom deeply into their prey.

Zanibar, Tanzania

iv. one week and one day after the burial

I saw an infant child appear every time I closed my eyes. I tried to not see, to keep my eyes wide.

The sky spread open to rain just as two women drew my outdoor bath. Red flowers stuck to my forehead, my arms, my cheeks, and buoyed. Droplets fell between leaves, chilling the tepid water as it wrapped around my skin.

Behind my blinks were psychic visions I tried to ignore. A figure flashed, alien in form. She was feminine. She had a large, peculiar, black, and angular head. She sat, flickering, uninvited, in my bathtub with me. Waiting on me to acknowledge her and the baby in her arms.

“What are you doing here,” I finally asked, without words, annoyed, and knowing.

“You are pregnant,” she peered into me, lovingly, and firm.

“That’s ridiculous,” I opened my eyes in defiance. Too scared to ask why Spirit was appearing in day-time visions to tell me something so impossible. “I am not.”

But I was.

v. six days before the bath

I dreamt of dark paths, laced with vines, and winding at crossroads. There were snakes everywhere.

At first, I was not scared. I watched them move, in admiration. They were beautiful, peaceful. Their heavy bodies melodied with the ground beneath them.

But then, I must navigate one of these paths, I realized, concerned, in a celestial haze.

I called out to my absent guide, any guide. I told her of the variety and volume of snakes. As if she did not know. Hello?

I need you here, I pleaded. Please explain, I begged, why am I on this path. Tell me what to do.

No answer.

I sat in the silence of my dream space. Watched the serpents. Waited. Still alone, unguided.

A coiled black viper, nearest me, lay at the edge of a single path.

The path with the viper is my path, I understood, though no one told me.

I moved slowly forward. I did not know if the viper would slither away or strike as I neared. Or maybe, if I nudged it…

I need help, I feared, more silently this time.

No answer.

I slowly came to consciousness from my dream realm. Gradually remembered my physical body was asleep, safely in bed.

Except. I felt the heavy presence of the viper still nearby. Laid next to me. I turned over and saw.

It was Maulid, with his elbows at his knees, coiled exactly like the dream viper.

Oh, my eyes shot wide, my dream was telling me Maulid is a snake…

vi. hours before a viper dream, two days after the burial

It was Janelle Monae, in her Age of Pleasure, who sang me into seduction. Her sultry contralto moved Maulid and me into dips, and thrusts, and windings. On the jungle’s dance floor.

Janelle had us sweat into each other’s fantasies and slip into lustful gazes. She put Maulid’s hand on my breasts and turned up our vibration so high pieces of me ran away into the sea and came back salty, wet and elusive; pieces of him burrowed through the ground and returned effusive, ignited, smoldering.

And so. Later. In my bed. When resistance became a stranger,

Maulid dived between me until time folded into herself. I rolled my eyes to the absolutes of their cavities, left my body to react to his soft lips, his precision. His trill. His gruff. Chanted in tongues. For many, many, then several, and more many minutes. We floated and soared.

I closed my eyes and visualized us, shaped us, enclosed us in a sphere; an iridescent globe, filled it with shimmering rainbow colors, an ethereal haven. I swear I saw we were surrounded by our spirit kin. My spirit left, swirled around us and into the astral, taken.

When I came, back, the bed was soaked, warbles, waves, unfurled a hollowed falsetto. Pierced the membrane of us.

And then. As if a river rushed out of my heart, up and through my throat, I cried. Sobbed round, prolific, sweet tears into his tightening embrace. I grieved and without reserve, collapsed, because I could not remember the last time I felt safe enough to surrender, entirely, to moments.

He reacted, whispered, “you’re okay,” shuffled his heavy body and pressed it firmly onto mine. Laid deliberately chest to chest, like a weighted blanket, stimulating more serotonin. Even greater release. Uttering nothing, requesting nothing.

A beautiful, complex overlap as we both drifted, slept full, uninterrupted.

Until…

Read Part I .

Part III, an Interlude, and Part IV will be posted on upcoming Tuesdays and Thursdays.