In the morning as I dress I draw on a stocking--a long black or white glistening stocking. I know I do it only because the mixed big world, which refuses to Waver, is pushing--pushing me. I would choose if I could--though loathing my choice--to stay with my bare foot and my stocking in my hand, Wavering. Between drawing it on and pausing barefoot, Wavering. I prefer not to draw on the stocking: I prefer not to be barefoot: I prefer Wavering--Wavering-- When I’m hungry I choose: not to let food alone: not to eat it: to have it by me and Waver, Waver emptily. Not to enjoy its anticipation: not to contemplate it. No--_no_! To _Waver_! I reach and take the food because the world in its pushing pushes me. If the world stopped pushing-- One reason it will be pleasant to be dead: I can then no longer Waver. Worms will eat me unwaveringly. Or they may then do the Wavering. But _I_ shall no more pause with a bare foot and an empty stocking, a dish of food and a gnawing midriff. Here I sit as yet, alive and Wavering. The Wavering is not the pale cast of thought: it is not my way of analysis: it is only Wavering--Wavering-- Wavering is not among the blue-green Stones in my antique necklace: not by that name--not as one Stone. It is a marked and hateful and hellish gift of this present Me who house my Soul. It is half of this Mary MacLane--who is I--: and I know. I am constant alone--noticeably tensely constant--in my Wavering: and less constant in Wavering than in the ghoulish preference. An odd and subtle doom. _A thousand kisses_ To-morrow Among my other gifts I own also Wantonness. In proof of which I am wishing as I sit here for a Thousand careless kisses: eleven o’clock of still evening--a Thousand Kisses. A wonderful, wonderful attribute, Wantonness: rich, rich luster in the conscious temperament which owns it, a Gift-thing delicate and gorgeous. By it I want a Thousand Kisses: a Thousand--made all of Wantonness. Kisses come in differing kinds and only one is Wanton. The kiss of a lover has an intense cosmic use: the kiss of a mother is tender fostering food: the kiss of a friend is vantage and grace of friendliness: the kiss of a child is cool charm of snowflakes and green springtime leaves. And the kiss of Wantonness is not of use, nor of food, nor of gracing vantage, nor of childhood charm--but is restless essence of humanness and worldliness and mere sheer limitless encompassing liking: born of sweet lips, alien it might be, and secretly ‘unattuned,’ but warm and fond and _present_: answering the pathos of infinite jejuneness which flows, flows always in red human blood. Through the race rides a long dread wistfulness, made of tears and lies and the barbaric distress and pitfall of everyday’s journey: a crying wish for a cup of warmed drugged sweet ease to turn it all a moment away: but a moment away.