On The Porch Of Desire

My house is meant to be filled with the type of soft pinks and lace curtains fluttering in the breeze of an open window, wind building until occasionally she flys up revealing a glimpse of a green heaven drenched in sunlight, bare and nothing between us.

My house is a taste I've longed for at the edge of my open mouth. Coming true first in the crinkles of pink flowers the size of cabbage, wood that has surely known a grandfather, and a sweetness that laces its fingers through everything, before words can even take shape.

And so I see it spilling out around me, like flowers blooming out onto themselves until they touch their own stems, abounding, abounding. Held by this taste I am spelling out before me. Spell. Spell -- a feeling that spills out by itself, from a knowing of its own. That is my life I am wrapping myself in - a spell rolling straight from my tongue to everything that embraces me now.

Let me spell this too:

I want someone who gives me a deep, knowing glance, someone who chooses me, who is enchanted by me and specifically me in ways that are beyond words, explanation. It just is. Like M in middle school, like Tita and Pedro, like water for chocolate.

Someone to lace my fingers with and meet eyes with a soft smile, a landing place, as expansive as the sky, as steady as the earth, and as deep as the roots between them. I want to be known.

I want to spend all day talking, and not. And still there is not enough time. Speaking in a knowing that is beyond words, certainly living beyond those gridded sticks of English. His eyes, his eyes. A galaxy.

A poet, a dreamer, a cowboy, a son of the land, a man like a flower, like the clay after rain, a blessing to all he touches. I want someone who is deeply brilliant -- in how sharply he can sense his own edges, in how much he notices the particular beauty of that petal at this time of day, in how much his heart feels the other's pain, in how much he can carry the weight of his own self, in how accountable he is to his heart, however brave, however trusting down unpaved country roads that needs him to be.

I want someone who questions. I want someone who cares. And could do anything, but throws it all away to do this -- what is of heart, of truth, of self and other, of land, of love. I love you already. Thank you.

I want a man whose brilliance is not how much he can mold to the ropes and grids, climb for himself, no. But how much he learns the language of his own dirt, finds his way to it through uncharted land, ear to the ground, just searching for his own heartbeat. A whole new world through his brilliance, his own way back to this utterly same world his brilliance.

We lay down on cane cots under the stars. At midnight, at 4. Enamored, enamored, with each other, with the moon. And never less enamored, never less in awe of this beauty. And this is our job, to love in awe. The jasmine flowers growing on either side of us. And everyone from inside the house, with jobs, with duties, caught in the "important" things, will call us crazy. Laugh at our stupidity. And we will laugh too. That under the curtain of madness, we can do whatever we want. All day, and all night. Just this. Just this. And love. Yes, this.

_____________________

You don't like the sound of the truth Comin' from my mouth You say that I lack the proof Well, baby that might be so

I might get to the end of my life Find out everyone was lyin' I don't think that I'm afraid anymore Say that I would rather die tryin'

Woh-oh Swing me way down South Sing me somethin' brave from your mouth And I'll bring you Pearls of water on my hips And the love in my lips All the love from my lips

This time when he swung the bat And I found myself layin' flat I wondered What a way to spend a dime What a way to use the time, ain't it baby?

I looked at my reflection in the window walkin' past And I saw a stranger Just so scared all the time it makes me one more reason Why the world's dangerous

Woh-oh Swing me way down South Sing me somethin' brave from your mouth And I'll bring you Pearls of water on my hips And the love in my lips All the love from my lips

You don't like the sound of the truth Comin' from my mouth You say that I lack the proof Well, baby that might be so

Tell me what's wrong with havin' a little faith In what you're feeling in your heart Why must we be so afraid And always so far apart?

But as Audre told us, poetry (and beauty, or the erotic) is NOT a luxury. It is a reconnection to all that is divine.

It is my core. It is perhaps actually the most true thing to all of what I do and drawn to. guided by. Beauty is love, beauty is entrypoint, beauty is guide, beauty is desire leading me off of the edge of the porch towards my destiny.

beauty is. beauty is life.

Which is why every time I am in a low, depressive place, my 3 steps out of that pit have always been stillness/space (letting myself not have to do, be anything), pay attention, and feed myself beauty.

Then, usually, serendipity finds me. And I am reminded again of my charmed, chosen, and "highly favored" place in the world of things as the universe's girl.

I'm so tired of this deep shame that I am too much. That I talk too much. That I have too many feelings or thoughts to say. That no one has the patience or interest in hearing them. That they are just tolerating me and bearing what I have to say.

Take the leap my love. Off the cliff. Your very first step. In many ways it does feel like the first day of my life (like that song). Today, when I was out on the back porch, aside from this surface level anxiety I'm feeling, I could feel the insides of myself, opening up. Like there were just fields and fields of my essence. An opening, the beginning. Me standing at the edge of an open field, fields to explore ahead. And all of it the beginning of my own inner expanse. Until now,, I could not even be there because there was always something to shake off my shoulder, and to always be looking back over my shoulder.

Isn't it something to be here? In my own house, breathing a clear breath, able to feel my own essence? My heart beating normally.

Even these moments of panic this morning (thinking about her feelings and what I should and shouldn't be doing) put me back in the type of anxiety that put me into a heaviness, a chest and throat tightness, a paralysis that had me wanting to freeze and lay down until the hours passed.

What a difference. I haven't felt this since. probably October when she texted.

Doesn't that say something. I want to see

I want to see who I am if i keep walking up to cliffs, and leaping off them despite what all that is behind me is calling me to come back, step back and curl into something smaller and safer.

I want to see who I am beyond the cliff. And that cliff, and that cliff.

Standing tall, back straight.

Curiosity and not fear.

0 - Salik. The fool card. Sufi Tarot. leads to 17 - Sitara. The Star.

I do not need this. In its absence, I will not become lazy, complacent, mediocre, unrecognizable, unknown, or forgotten. My life will not slip out from my hands.

My control and labor is not the only thing bringing blessings into my life, or making my life into what I hoped it would be, or better. In fact, you are often too tired to feel the blessing even when you get there. Still clenched, worried that you'll lose it all. If you only have it because you did everything just right, perfect and unfailing, certain parts cinched and severed, then that in-security never goes away. You fear you could exhale and lose it all. If it was all your doings that got you here, then your un-doings could undo it all.

More than anything, I want a reality where I am loved not for my labor, or my catering, but for me. As I am. Here. Now.

As much as I actually live my life based on the opposite. Fighting for dear life to be loved, belonged, to not slip, and fall thousands of feet to the depths of the canyon. Fighting to make it to the hangar.

Do you believe you deserve it? What would happen if you trusted yourself? What would happen if you trusted the universe? What would happen if you trusted your body? What would happen if you trusted your feelings?

And that was it. We just moved from there -- the future is the future based on a current intuition. And that future is based from truth, so could only be true. I love you.

I do not want to hitch myself to a vision like a horse in flight, my own body dragged and scraped along jagged rocks till I get there. I want to sit on the earth, and start with my what my body says. I want to gather dirt, solid, in my hands, and build from there. I want to plant the seed and trust, nourish that trust, and let it feed me back. I want to eat. I want to feel dirt in my hands, food in my body.

As I try to get closer to that longing, I am seeing patterns. I am learning what parts of it, and me, are painful. I am learning what it is I long for. I am learning what feels like paradise, sanctuary, a place I have long been coming to. Isn’t it wild the ways that the things and places we’ve been making our way to have been a looooong time coming? Longer than we would even think.

The other day I stumbled upon a loose diary sentence, just all its own without any context. From 2021 — when i was still in India, very far from and occasionally dreaming of that teal house that may house me, my writing, and my southern dreams. It read — “word magnets on a fridge — homefulness”. I almost had to do a double take because I thought, did I just write this like a few weeks ago?? Because I literally have word magnets on the fridge in this home of mine, teal and cottage like just as I have drawn it in that notebook nearly 4 years ago. And I did not know when I did it, the magnets I mean, that it was any more than a desire that sprang up in that moment in the little gift shop down the street. But of course, of course our desires are always reaching, then, now, and tomorrow.

This is comforting. To know we can trust ourselves, our wants. We do not have to trust those who characterize our wants as missteps, mistakes, mismeasurements, etc. fleeting, fickle, flippant. They are not; We are not.

Perhaps the only thing that changes is the belief that those desires are still possible. And that is the whole difference. Whether to stay hungry and familiar with the taste of your desire, even unmet. Or to dull those edges so you do not have to ever know hunger, or a self that breeds it, anymore.

But I am learning that desire is a constant thread, consistent as ever. Longing, longing still for that same paradise.

It's not about how singular or superlative it is in a ladder of legibility, reward, fame, or recognizability. No it has always been a deep deep celebration of what she knows to be true.

And maybe that's because she has known for a long time. A deep knowing.

My throat has been feeling blocked all day. I wonder if this was what sojo was experiencing. I want joy, joy, ease, ease, life, life, my voice, bravery.

I want to write every day and give importance to my work. Play. Flow. You know? For there to be enough free flowing space there.

As Alexis says, when we are loved profoundly, anything is possible.

---

I'm thinking about Kening's podcast, and the fact that her journey makes me think about the beauty and bravery of my own journey. To be this kind of person. A gemini, a brilliant creative whose process must be as much her essence as the outcome.

A flower cannot be what it is if its essence does not start from its root, and along the way. *radical*

I want to tell that story to reclaim my story, to tell it, to climb again to that rushing edge, the frontier of my own life. Not the shore but the crashing of a wave.

Wow it really feels like my throat is closing in, maybe i'll take the ashwagandha thing today? Is it anxiety? Is it something I inhaled in breathing outside? Is it my throat chakra? I want to do some yoga but i need to extend my pass as well, and hope that my stiffness gets better in the meantime.

I get overwhelmed thinking about reclaiming my past journey, and owning it. My stomach feels like butterflies, I'm scared (that the gastritis is returning) or that my acid has reached a dangerous level. Let me drink liquids for the rest of the day.

I want to set up my outdoor space. I'm tired. Remember the thrashing of the rapids, and remember to not internalize it, to not absorb the shards. To remember you are in fact a water person.

I dont want to see her. I'm listening to my inner child.

But yes when i get overwhelmed at retelling and reclaiming my story, i think of two easeful pathways - the children's story. And two, to give dynamism to something that is past, do what Audre Lorde did with Undersong - add the voice of your current self underneath. Both of you.

But also remember that you are at the frontier of something - you do not need to justify your past nor is it the only thing you have to work with.

[Need more references of brown and Black girl bloggers, diaspora bloggers, from shows and movies. If anyone knows of any, please send my way :) ]

The lonely girl in a new place, wishing upon a life with starry eyes. Looking out her window on a stormy day, spooning mouthfuls of Chinese takeout between clicks and clacks of truth spilling out. Tender, honest words. Written on the floor of an empty apartment, with only possibility ahead.

I long for this after years spent hidden away in the pages of my diary or puppeted by the pressure to unconditionally expose myself on Instagram. I long for that liminal place in between, a place where we can both turn to the world and still be called home. A porch. To me, tumblr, blogger, and all the personal blogging sites of yore are like the porches of the internet. Each of us, facing the world from our personal havens. Showing but not selling. And anyone, who walks by, who is meant to walk by, stranger or kin, will see themselves in you and maybe stop by for a sweet tea or two. Maybe in the weeks that come, they will know to look for you, and they will look forward to waving, checking in, taking your street. And I will do the same.

I want those beautiful parts of me to surface. I want to feel fortified in the knowing of me.

I want to feel possibility again.

The search for belonging. Being my own mirror along the way, and honoring her. Not losing her along the way. Not contorting her.

Time with the river, maybe a south asian farm, maybe a temple, maybe some horses, i want to find my home here too.

I want to be listening to the dots, like in Elle Luna. Writing the quotes, serendipity. And to believe that my family is with me on this. And not something I ever have to trade. I love you.