Elisa English

Lover of words, tea and all things feline. Straddling the line between sweet and tart. Two parts candid, one part fiction. “I want to do with you what spring does to the cherry trees.” -Pablo Neruda Unless stated otherwise, the writing’s my own.

[elisaenglish]

-Carlos Bonvalot, Pierrot’s Kiss (1916)-

[elisaenglish]

“(would you like to read to me in the soft would you like to enter me in the soft

would you like a lunch of me in the soft in its long delirium?)”

-Deborah Landau, Soft Targets-

Teach me. Tell me every aching thing your heart has ever carried, every dream, high, in flight, kiss of contemplation. As we sail into the soul, our constellation, oeuvre only yours—steeped in oceans sweet, your lips, my sacred...

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“Let’s just lay around and make love and take walks and talk a little.”

-Charles Bukowski, Post Office-

I want you in my eyeline. I’ve love affaired my hope to see you come apart, completion never knew not what it was until here settled in my arms, your heart convicted—fuck those buried arts... Inside me. Still. Forever...

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This Is My Proof

“I said I love you like math, Infinite and exact And you cannot subtract from my attraction Or reduce into fractions Infinitesimal as the decimal to my point”

-Chad Anderson, Like Math-

My exponential's only ever one—and to the matter, breathe. Real for me is staked to your volition...

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Dora Maar photographed by Irving Penn in France, 1948.

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It occurs to me as I navigate another of those nebulous segues that I should chronicle these things more. I spent last night on stage, have floated through today on too little sleep, and yet there is this ⬆️—the least personal of what’s poured in (I have to maintain a certain veil) but no less important than this. So of course, my soul... It overfloweth.

Bless and bless and bless them. All the bunnies and all the bears. 🐻 Year of the hawk, blah blah. I know, but I’m still me despite the dint of my creation. As for the unfathomable? It’s not. Not really. You just show up every day, do the best you can with what you have, and you make it matter.

The biggest secret is there is no fucking secret. The magic doesn’t make itself, we do. Tell me we can’t, and I’ll continue to show you we can. What can I say? No one said I’m not strident when I float. Love is, I find—and I’m the one who’s grateful. 😊

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“you raised me from the dead // sinister digits // if there’s // a right way // to stroke raw honey from the lioness’s mouth”

-Destiny O. Birdsong, Ode to My Penis-

Warmth spills, swollen calibration, where my breath lies heavy on your skin...

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The humidity’s finally breaking; Lily and I have played two-hand tummies (and I cleaned her eyes because it was needed and no one else seems to be doing it); oh and just so you know, it’s probably always I’ve loved you... All right?

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On the Subject of Our Visceral Frequency

“Peel me open like a mango, sticky juices staining your hands. Eat me out, my papaya heart filling your empty stomach... I want to leave you dirty with the memory of me unable to wash my scent off your skin... Spilling out of your mouth, running down your chin I am everywhere.”

-Ally Ang, Durian Girl-

Put your money where your mouth is, is less a case of abstract risk—if we’re going down then real’s the thing—but all day, every day... Is it ever quite enough?

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-Kremena Chipilova, Her Shadows Caress Me (2022)-

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“Twilight—and you Quiet—the stars;  Snare of the shine of your teeth,  Your provocative laughter,  The gloom of your hair;  Lure of you, eye and lip;  Yearning, yearning,  Languor, surrender;         Your mouth,  And madness, madness,  Tremulous, breathless, flaming,  The space of a sigh.”

-Angelina Weld Grimké, El Beso-

The flat forecast is for heat. Lying here inside of me, I want you just to come. Permission given, yours to keep. We ache in strains of salt, unscripted. All the ways you think—you know... Die a little, burn a lot... Does it deep apply? Of course. On this edge, to swallow long, the climb is just the fall—the wait is over...

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This is Lily. ⬆️ Lily lives next door but has been trying to move in with us. Despite my best efforts, she will not be dissuaded from her quest. I step outside—and the coast is super clear, by all accounts—and then she comes running. And it’s all, rub, rub, rub, let’s play some tummies. Oh, and you don’t mind if I come in, do you? I would be an excellent addition to the 🐻 clan. Plus the law says that once I’ve had your hand in my mouth, it’s love bites forever.

She is obsessed. And cute. And wearing me down. And (and how many times can one woman use a mock exasperated and?) I fear this is my pattern.

I’ve always wanted a house full of animals. A house full of books. A house full of love. I’ve never so much as kissed a man who I wasn’t in love with, or who wasn’t in love with me for that matter. I don’t do casual. I don’t do superficial. The domestic trifecta is sacrosanct. And in the simplest of ways, I am myself.

In this. In always.

So, the point is... If the point’s to be a thing—and at this point, I think it might be a criminal offence for it not to be. If you’re coming in, you need to mean it. I need to know you’re not going to disappear, that you have Lily’s tenacity when it comes to me. Those be the terms.

And we both know what’s going in our mouths...

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You are my aftertaste in reverse, drunken sleep for waking dreams, expression where the impress leaves its mark. They say to maybe sex the world; I swear by planet us. Only, as in soul me up. Lifetimes hence, come round again, sovereign where your lips have been returned. That middle, start, no end—the on... And wouldn’t it be so thoroughly lamentable to waste it?

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“Then at certain moments I remember one of his words and I suddenly feel the sensual woman flaring up, as if violently caressed. I say the word to myself, with joy. It is such a moment that my true body lives.”

-Anaïs Nin, Henry and June: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin-

I want the imprint, the inner us prevailed, the instinct, language flowed through touch, the distinct polarity fused as yearning pulse. P.S... Imperial loves the dirt—that crush it all to me...

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Half Twist on the Möbius Strip

“I want to rip off your logic and make passionate sense to you.

I want to ride in the swing of your hips.

My fingers will dig in you like quotation marks, blazing your limbs into parts of speech.”

-Jeffrey McDaniel, The Jerk-

Endgame has its raw definition, timing untethered, lips of possession. You can try, as we draw down the heavens... Push, pull, live, die... Finite? Fuck it, don’t be shy... Physics has us strung tonight—and round and round we go...

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“Teeth on my neck and hands gripping my bones. I want you like something wild wants the key to it’s cage. How long do we sit here trading radical words while I stare at your mouth? How much can I impress you with all my talk of revolution when all I want to do is fuck you?”

-Clementine von Radics, Untitled-

The mise-en-scène presents the door ajar, ever-light in situ. Complements are what we are: eyes, lips, breath, skin... Thunder as in breakage, closer—all that fucking moonfire in the veins... Knees, oh my love...

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-Junaid Mortimer, Best Friends (2023)-