I don't know if a picture is worth a thousand words. If that were always true, I guess I could've uploaded a bunch of pictures and saved myself alot of two-finger typing. :) Some things can only be communicated in words, I think. But pictures unquestionably tell stories. Like the following. I guess I could say nothing about that picture, and let you form your own opinion about it; but I think a little background makes it more meaningful.

I'm talking about my 5th-grade class picture - the portrait photo you can see on the right. That picture was taken in December when I was 10 years old. It was my second year at my new elementary school. That picture tells two stories.

I remember the picture-taking session distinctly. Here are a few relevant facts you'll need, in order to understand this story:

• It was a warm day in December; exceptionally warm, even for the South, as I recall.
• The photographer's lights were hot.
• He had us sitting on a hard wooden stool for the pics.
• My mom has always been relatively slack about getting laundry done.
• Therefore, I had gone to school that day without wearing underwear.
• And I was wearing Levis, which of course tend to be rough-textured pants.

The result of all this was that, at the moment the pic was taken, I was... um, standing at attention. I think it's kind of apparent from the expression. Do you agree?

I'm not positive which pic this was, but I think it was last or next-to-last in the series. I remember my mom commenting, "you look like the cat who swallowed the canary."

It's oddly coincidental in one sense that this look was captured by the school photographer. It probably wouldn't have happened, if I had been wearing underwear that day. But this guy took four different poses, under those hot lights, and I was getting more wiggly with each one, with the resulting friction; and all that heat and wiggling (as well as the fact that I was a sexually-aware 10 year-old boy) was producing a more and more pronounced physical response. Puberty was still a year in the future, so it wasn't too obvious, except to me.

I guess this would have been embarrassing to most kids, but it's literally impossible to embarrass me. I guess I was born with a recessive embarrassment gene, or something. I'm not sure if that's good or bad, but it's been interesting over the years.

This was about four months after I'd been to Y-camp the first time, and played grab-the-weenie and come close to having sex with a boy there; and about 7-8 months before Alex and I did it. So I knew very well what this physical reaction was all about. I was horny alot at ten years old.

So, what does this look say to me, today?

At Y-camp, when I grabbed Joe's erection in the water, he got a look on his face that I recognized well, because I'd seen it on my own face while jacking off in front of the mirror. His expression and mine were expressions of desire. It's the same expression I have in this picture. I was aroused and I wanted to have sex at that moment. If the circumstances had been different - a willing boy, and a private location - I could've easily done it on the spot. And I'm not even sure about the "private" element. The idea of sex in public wouldn't have particularly bothered me, back then, except that I knew there would be consequences if we got caught.

I look at this pic and I see sexual desire. I look at this picture and I see a little boy with an erection, who wanted sex. And of course, I started having sex, soon after.

But there's another face in that picture, too.

It's a face of desire - desire for something deeper than the sexual craving you see here. Behind the arousal, I see a boy who wanted love, and wasn't getting it. I see a little boy with a million friends, and a busy schedule, and alot of knowledge about adult things like sex and alcohol and divorce. I see a little boy with an erection in his Levis, and an empty space in his heart.

I thought I wanted sex. I did want sex. Sex was awesome and fun. But sex was a big Fourth-of-July skyrocket, and that skyrocket had a hollow core. I exploded, over and over, and tried to let that explosion fill me up. But fire can't fill you up. Water, clear water, can fill you up, make that hollow place feel at rest. Water, healing water, was what I needed, and I didn't drink, because I was in the desert, skyrockets all around me, and a million miles to the promised land.