Agency

My favorite memory was nature.

I still remember this

from the time

before I was chosen

for indoctrination.

A time before my instruments

were trained on beauty,

before I discovered

I could make my own 

weather.

Since then, 

everything I’ve done,

I’ve done as an agent

on an urgent mission,

under my own surveillance,

employed by an agency

that has never revealed itself.

I receive messages 

via what is likely an implant

buried in a head of cabbage.

Plucked from obscurity

as an abandoned child

and trained by calamity

(I was once made to eat

my own vomit),

Still, I never talked.

My nervous breakdown at 17

saw me sever ties with any hope

for a normal life.

All my experiences became assignments.

When I uncovered love

(or did love uncover me?),

I was already working for the agency.

The slightest show of affection

would have me bombarded with spasms

of permeating discomfort. 

I remember how my heart 

often felt like an open wound.

Here’s the thing: 

Love is an overt betrayal

of the agency’s principles.

Love makes you vulnerable

to un-vetable outside forces. 

Every foray into the illogic

of loving risks

endangering your mission.

I have now worked for the agency

for what amounts to my entire life,

often moving to another city 

when exposed.

My adventures have been marked by

small, inconspicuous successes.

As an agent

friendships are rare, if impossible.

Friendliness is only encouraged 

as an intelligence strategy.

Unable to make enemies

even with an enemy

and because of fear of exposure,

my personal opinions 

have been rendered pointless.

I am not here

to accumulate likes and dislikes

like so many joys or unpleasantness.

It is forbidden for me to object.

I am not here to pleasure myself.

My pleasure is viewed 

as a form of betrayal.

I could choose to confess.

An old spy is not a young spy

and a reckoning is surely coming.

I am working for the agency

at the expense of any right

to the most mundane

gesture of selfishness.

As a boy I learned 

to observe others

by surveilling myself:

On home base

I wasn’t just holding the bat,

I observed myself

holding the bat

while the other boys had fun,

I had already been inducted

and hiding

in plain sight.

Truth is, I was chosen because

I was attractive to the enemy,

vulnerable and without family ties,

and I had an undeniably open heart.

So many avenues would have

been possible for me,

except for the most valuable: 

Simple being.

Imagine for a moment

working for a clandestine agency

where you have never met the boss

face to face,

where proving your worth

is based on your ability to blend in,

to appear to belong no matter

where you find yourself,

but never truly belonging.

Your smallest everyday exchange

is an experience to be infiltrated

rather than lived.  

From your first glimmer 

of sexual awakening

you are groomed as a prostitute

and encouraged to use your sex

in exchange for information.

When you went rogue and experimented

as you often have

using your sexuality for escape

rather than leverage,

you were made ill 

and confined

to your bed

like Ingrid Bergman in Notorious.

For years I became convinced

the agency was working

out of the basement 

of a local evangelical church.

Maybe that way 

I could imagine myself

a noble experiment,

an enigma,

something futile

yet holy.

I live my life by a series of codes.

First code of conduct:

No one says what they mean.

I may say what I mean

only after extraction.

After all,

words are for disguising what is.

Second code of conduct:

People hide their weaknesses.

And I am not allowed to show strength.

Be always a valley

as water flows ever downward

like love to an empty cup.

There are other rules:

Do not draw attention to yourself.

Do not become famous for anything.

Do not fraternize with other agents.

Do not be ugly, angry, or mean.

And also some do’s:

Be simple and kind, not complicated.

Be approachable, unpretentious, and polite.

Occasionally use curse words.

Do not appear perfect.

Last night I scribbled a note 

on the inside of a book of matches

and tossed it from a height.

Lucky for me, I found it.

The note read: 

Find that thing

that touches

everything you think.

God, beauty, love, 

pleasure, fear, desire….

Then meet me there.

They’re onto you.

Peter Valentyne

September 2018