Self As Presentation

My mother’s body, and my fear of her body. I was always at odds. Both in love with her as fiercely and deeply as anything and grieving her already. Grieving her because I loved her, and strangely aware of how much time a lifetime can fall short of love and it’s visions. How the imagination of love can outrun our time living.

Even now, my love for her and fear for her is childish. I still hesitate. I look at her and her face. 

I don’t think she even knows how much I love her. How much of myself I devoted to her when she smiled at me. She was my whole world. I could never want to look past her. I couldn’t even imagine past her, beyond her. I felt like a priest, and inside my heart as a baby, was a private little shrine. Just for her. 

Where she went with God, I followed, too. Just behind her, loving her first and then God. 

Under the light of the sun in the days of my infancy, her smile glittered on my eyes like light on the face of a lake. 

Her tremendous life as a vicissitude. And these are indeed vicissitudes—I feel my love and fear for my parents change between themselves as though by the same winds which pull and gather the earth through the seasons. 

And they are the same, these desperate, natural forces: attempts, in feeling, to stop time, while being even then a participant to the same, deft wholeness of movement— of that which moves. Attempts to quell a larger, quieter and bodiless motive, with a senseless, terrified shriek.

.

I waited on the stairs, and listened. I pressed my breath down deep and slow inside of me, not to be heard or seen or felt, keen of the living room. Of the darkness of the living room. Of my weight on the steps as I listened, and waited. And waited. And waited, understanding that I stood at the edge of what happened, long ago. 

Something brute, I wonder, a bold though muted shape. Or a beautiful thing, staggeringly so as to go without any name. The gift I come always to life, every morning, gathering from my parents. 

The split burden. Some would say, the apple. 

I don’t ever think to put my teeth into it, but if it’s an apple I can’t decide what to expect—I want sweetness, and the salacious squirt of late summer fruit running into my mouth. But in my imagination, I always bite into my own skin. Which is inedible. 

I am confused. I can only deduce my hunger. And that without the right word to name what my parents have called me, I am starving and remain starving. 

I refuse— I refuse it all!

I refuse the dark and its mysterious, calloused leather

I refuse the next thing, and the next, and indeed, the last

I said, once, long ago...

But then, who is laundering my days like this—pressing down the furrows and creases of my shaken heart

       What lies in the cradle of my hips

besides but humbled, deep bones and a lovely pocket?

What sleeps here, it's head and face hoisted between my thighs, a pubic mantelpiece—gentle and silent

breathing heavy; hitched when I turn to the side?

        What creature is there, there?

What slighter history, moods,

the mornings of days in imminence, like clouds rushing their heathery bodies against the quick sky

        rushing against the quick.

what prophetic eye turns inside of my love?

Life Update:

I had a dream yesterday morning that I was this close to getting into a party at Drake’s house, but I ended up taking a joyride instead with total strangers.

...

Are these the kinds of decisions I want to make in my conscious life, and I’m just waiting for the opportunity to arise? Is this what my dream was trying to tell me?

—

I went to two concerts last month (Azealia Banks and Partynextdoor); joined tinder for a hot minute just to see what it was like before deleting because it was just...so odd.

Darren. 22. “Cool” guy. SDSU. Likes pizza and puppies (like everyone else on this godforsaken app) and did a Jell-O shot from a girl’s navel at least once in the past, apparently. 

Interesting hairline. Exists somewhere nearby... less than 5 mi. away. 

Swipe right?.. Mm....Non-committal swipe left, it is. I have no real expectations on this app.

....how...how the fuck did I match with this guy?

—-

...In other news, I might be going back to school finally. Applying to *** for the fall semester. 

Still don’t know where my life is going. 🤫

12/08/17