i’m bleeding, i’m not just making conversation

CARRIE PAGE LIVES in a rented bungalow in Odessa, Texas. The decor is spare to nonexistent. The smells are Pine-Sol, Bounce dryer sheets, something wafting up from the concrete, the mustiness inside a jar of old, dried thyme, and the rotten-banana fume of drugstore nail-polish. She wears a dirty blonde, iron-curled bob that looks inspired by photos of Miranda Lambert, three years ago, in People. Her jeans are 'heritage blue' and bootcut, size twenty-nine. Her jewelry is 'antique silver.' She’s a waitress. Her entire circumstance has the air of a great find at the thrift store. You would say: Oh, is that a new life? She would reply, with a self-conscious shrug: It’s new to me. She looks like a woman who used to be a girl named Laura Palmer.

I like trees and I love wood. I like to cut wood. Tonight, we’re going to a place where the trees are primarily Douglas firs. Douglas firs are a beautiful tree and if we’re very quiet, we can hear the wind rustling the needles as we move through the forest, getting closer and closer, and now we’re here. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the world of Twin Peaks.

i kneel down like a collector of jewels before you. i am singing one long necklace of love my mouth a sapphire of grapes.