reading poetry over the summer
oliver, michaels and my reply to his apology
One moment is like another, this summer, but not too much. The music makes it different. It keeps changing; late in the morning, Mac DeMarco. Blue evening songs by Boy Deco.
I share what I listen. Stop a friend in their tracks and earn good songs in return, crafting shared playlists across the internet, all the while hoping we were collectively lying on the floor.
I miss shared spaces. I miss the knowing. Most of all I miss the floor. Nobody sits on the floor anymore. Come let's sit on the floor!
I live out the summer, wishing for a quick removal.
Summer hurts me every year but it teaches me a great deal.
Summer refines taste. It changes perceptions. Removes the dead weight in one swift cut and leaves the world more flavourful. Leaves the world textured. I hate the fruit but I carry the seed into the winter.
Squished against my tan-trouser pocket it stains all surfaces and slips from the fingers that aim to throw it out.
The seed is a kin. Unlikely and misshapen. Awful and forgotten. Life covered in blood.
All life is metaphor. There is nothing beyond metaphor. The post human in the most literal sense is a metaphor; the bacteria that keep us alive carry the burden of feasting on what remains. They aren't unhappy about it. When death reaches out of the seed to contaminate the life within, and decay becomes reality, the bacteria, aka the realists, are smug-Smaug.
They ruin the texture. Make it cease. But it was there, it existed.
The skin carried the texture. The gaps in between fingers made to exist for another's to sit.
Made to exist with another but no, not truly.
The thing is, you don't understand-you can't! You didn't live my reality for two years.
He won't swallow me whole! He won't!
He did swallow me whole. Greedy, immature, selfish man. He bit into my heart knowing he wouldn't like the taste and left it unusable.
He came back to apologise, too late! But who's to tell him? Because really, he isn't a bad dude. He said he was one of the nice ones. He said he was nice. He said I was his future wife. That I was the love of his life.
Why would he lie?
I don't know why. I don't have time to wonder why. For now, distance; a safekeep, build a wall of stars around the frame. a way to make love possible, for next time.
Next time?
Yes. I like being in love. I like it a little too much. I like the version of me that comes out only when I'm in love. I wish I could call her forth more often. She really is a beautiful sight, I hope she shows up soon, just for me and maybe for you.
To be away. To be protected. Not at home. Out exploring. To study myself in a foreign plain, drive my car through the snow, hike up Mt Olympus, feast with the gods.
No, nothing that ambitious. Maybe a hint of movement. Something to say, you were wrong about me. I was wrong about you too.
The scar of naivety branded on the ankle shifts and burns. I need it to stay.
An altar I built for a fallible God. The God's dead, let the altar recast his memory.
I seek an aloneness, aloneness with the world. I find it while crocheting but it is quickly destroyed under the noise of life. Where can I go now? Where can I hope to find release?
and we might have, in our lives, have many thresholds, many houses to walk out from and view the stars, or to turn and go back to for warmth and company. but the real one- the actual house not of beams and nails but of existence itself- is all of earth, with no door, no address seperate from oceans or stars, or from pleasure or wrechedness either, or hope, or weakness or greed.
I keep a copy of Mary Oliver's essay collection Upstream on my bedside table. Its been months and I haven't finished it. That’s because I don't want to. I don't want to finish any book.
A new friend asks, what have you been reading, over a surprising yet pleasant late night call, interrupting my Severance spree
On the verge of finishing Septology, I answer.
You've been at it for as long as I have known you, so like what? three months or so?
Yes, well.
Hated it then?
No, I-I think I actually kind of love it, I think.
It feels nicer to stick with a book for a while longer than usual. It gives strange pleasure to read a paragraph or a chapter over and over. Though the bedside table is stacked with novels and essay collections I have dreamt about reading this month, I still can't bear to finish a single book.
Though now as I type this end, there are only a hundred pages to go.
Chet, if you're reading this. I've officially had this book in my life longer than you. You fit well. The book doesn't. I promise to complete it this week and we can talk about how you're only friends with me to borrow from my bookshelf ;)