Prolific as fuck. Inexhaustable ideas, endless energy, constant curiosity, bottomless creativity.
Selectively undereducated. Worldly wise and aware.
Knowing tomorrow could be the end. Scared to death this is all there is. Surely it’s just me.
Quiet inside. Alone all the time.
When the dawn breaks I’ll be there listening to the loudest territorial bird shouting a sonnet of spring songs, singing stay away enemies/lover, come back to here. Where? Lover, come. right. here.
How, in one song, to warn and welcome. At once, we want it and we push it away.
“I like your muscles” he said as his two equally handsome friends turned heads to see. Hollywood Blvd is alive with loiterers and I’ve got myself a well dressed trio as audience. Of all the random shit you hear shouted in your direction on a hot September day in the City of Angels, none has made me feel more genuinely attended to than that man’s words.
He wasn’t my type. He was more well dressed than creepy and none of that matters anyway. I was an arrow in a direct path always alone and full speed ahead. He was loitering to socialize. Dissonance, juxtaposition, our tempos didn’t synch. Yet when I looked back he was alraedy locked in to my glance with a genuine “yes, you”. Not only did he compliment me with words that I understand on things I hold truth in, but he wanted to make sure I got it. The voice of the Universe in designer jeans.
When I responded with shy facade he was satisfied he had been recieved and he pressed no further – no numbers exhcanged, no names transmitted – nor did I hesitate in my walk to chat or smile. The exchange was a gift and there is something commendable and completely human in it. Every once in a while I lose my faith in people, namely during political campaigns, around Christmas or when driving through suburbian strip mall towns. But recently I’ve been gifted two specific interactions with strangers that have reignited my faith in the human experience. These things do not go unnoticed.
I also get tired, working in the entertainment industry, of seeing 18 year old waif models dressed up in big girl clothes and airbushed into adults on magazine covers or 25 year old actresses cast across from a 40 year old men, supposadly the parents of a 12 year old daughter in films and television. Women across the nation are comparing their skin and physicality to these inaccurate representations when really, there’s nothing we can do to be 25 or 18 again. But all of us CAN work out, eat healthy and feel good. So when a well-dressed stranger says “I like your muscles” there’s a win in that for all women. Healthy is sexy and strong is beautiful. I’m listening, Universe.
I’m strong enough to carry my own bags. Even if it takes a trip or two. I’m aware enough to navigate new city streets. Keepin a third eye on things. I’m bad ass enough to not only have collected the weapons, but to know how to use them. And do.
But I don’t want to do it alone.
I’m together enough to have fresh flowers on the table. I know the value of beauty to my health. I’m driven enough to keep fit every day. Sometimes twice. Thrice in one day already in the past week. I’m grateful enough to sleep through the night – waking well rested. Without alarm.
But I don’t want to do it alone.
Anymore.
I don’t want to do it alone.
tbc
Reverse animism set in as the chocolates did. I used to would have thought it despicably self-centered, but that just shows how little I knew of it until now. I understood and practiced my own brand of animism, embuing inanimate objects, non-vertebras and ideas alike with spirit: the spirit of the soil, the spirit of a sunset, the energy of the road trip, the energy of genius. Without dogma nor definition, I do embrace animism.
But it all happened so fast. It was clearly meant to be. I was thinking and heard the call to look alive. I turned with grace towards the candle and just as I did, I was cut off by a wild moth, insane for the light, hurling itself with poor final judgement directly into the hot candle wax where it struggled to lift it’s burning wings away from clinging death. I knew I had turned and it had catulputed at the perfect meant to be moment. In that moment, I was certain that the moth had given it’s life for me to see and learn and grow from. Reverse animism. Ultimate self-centric spirituality.
So I watched. The red and black winged moth finished struggle and gave up in hopeless and painful exhaustion, to let the burn take over. Hopefully lose consciousness, but if not, fully aware that it’s outsides were now charred black and the other people, all of whom were me, carried on their conversations, laughing loudly, and never minding this perfect irreplaceable gift.
Because I wanted to. Because it felt right. Because I was curious. Because I didn’t know.
You keep your cool like it ain’t no thing. But I’m goin mad behind a facade of shy. I’m not. So if you see me acting that way, you know I’m hiding what’s up. What’s up – I catch your eye for hypnotic moment, but the lashes beat slowly, heavily before lowers the gaze.
Because black looks good on you. Because you have perfect things. Because you hold your tongue at times. But you always have the right opinion.
How could there be such a thing!
No need for keys in nine years. No storage space, no debt. Just me and my body moving across this earth finding life is free. My value is in my currency. It would take a city like LA to stimulate me. Late again out and no cease in sight. It’s only Thursday nite. It’s only Thursday nite.
Because you fit in my hands. Because you sing strongly out. Because my cheek feel how very soft your cheek. I will dream about that now.
You pull me towards you and this time it’s I who feels hesitation. There is no barrier, but I must be sure. You know how much I already love you. That will not change. I wonder what will.
Something will change.
A guitar pick, a baggie of water and pieces of a Stargazer lily.
A young, tattooed-everywhere man pulls his trick BMX off the front of the bus. An old, dark skin man wants me to know how beautiful I am.
I saw a man with no hands today. His bare feet were black from street and thick like shoe soles. He can obviously not tie or comb or steal.
The jasmine climbs the rain pipe.
I am so thankful for all the people whom have shown me love when I am down. They will love me. They will save me. They will tie my shoes, comb my hair and offer what I need.
Where were the people who love you, Black Soles. Why do you have no hands?
A vase of Stargazers, soon to perish, hold on to what’s left of living with all they’ve got.
Because when I walked off that little UCAP (Up Close And Personal) stage, I felt it. I was living the reason why women love burlesque. My cast mate said to me “look at you – you look sexy” “your legs are so long” “your butt looks great” and I said “I do” “they do” “it does” without vanity. Just assuredness because I wasn’t actually at all concerned any more about how I looked. I was detached from how I looked at all, hence I could see what she was sayin and accept the compliment – even agree objectively with it. I wasnt concerned with how I looked because how i FELT was what we all wanna feel; I felt unshakably sexy. I felt undistractably confident. I felt like I would rock any instrument I picked up, ace any test I took, connect with anyone Id meet – I felt empowered. I felt like I was everything good about being a woman.
That is why women love burlesque.
Especially me.
The moon presses it’s pregnant belly against the glass. Impatiently loosing cool light to my feet – caught out of shadow in the bath. The tub holds me a warm experience. The tub holds my private ocean.
You sent me flowers. Who are you?
Did you know it would make me feel loved? And surrounded by warm, fun things. Did you know how wandering I’ve been?
They aren’t even flowers, but cabbages. Brassica cornucopia of the of the decorative kind. A vase of decorative cabbages with congrats and pride on a card unsigned.
Who are you that thought of me once today so fondly? And left me with a vegetable center piece I imagine dancing around with a character I can really relate to – you; who sent me flowers.
