A Wayside

[f0stercare]

[thisbodyofwater]

The Glass Bottle

“You are the ship. You can’t forget how to float.”  “If I am the ship, does that make you the glass bottle?” “If I am the glass bottle, then you are also the buckling bookshelf.”

We go back and forth like this. Because no, I am not ship. I am the water. Black current biting. I am the wind as well. Whipping at a torn grey coat on the coast.

“You are a poet. Let me lick your neck.” Tugs at my pilled sweater. I am too high for this. We are in the room that never forgets. Bodies are burdens until they are pleasured. Hands and arms and tongues and torture. Do I possess anything but this wet flesh?

“You are a woman.” “Yes.” “You said you lost your mind.” “I’ve said it before.” “You came to me like light and asked me not to lose you.” “There are cameras for that very purpose.” 

It’s a long exposure of spilling sweetened coffee on the white sheets. Of coming home quietly to a candle I forgot about. The house strung out on the scent of artificial lavender. A nap I took in the backseat baked warm by the almost winter sun.

We go for a walk. We quarrel over where we left the car. 

“You parked it.” “You saw me park it.” “Let’s leave it. Let’s leave it.” 

I am habitual. I make my dinner in the microwave on Mondays. I don’t pray over these frozen trays of whatever the fuck. It’s easy to find Christ elsewhere. Easy to call out to Jesus when our mouths are involved like this. Easy to bow my head to take it in.

“You’re wet again.” “Yes.” “Say it.” “I’m wet again.” “Open for me like one of your mother’s flowers.” “I do not smell as sweet.” “No. You smell like rain. Harder to hold than water.”  “The lights are still on.” “Yes.” 

The lights are still on. Humming some soft electric yellow lemon song. I’ve got a callused hand around my vocal chords. I try the harmony anyways. Collapse after the crescendo. Collapse like my creator has gotten bored of my brown hair. Of my body that tips like a cracked pitcher of room temperature tea. 

“Calm yourself. You are the softest spot in this bed.” “But I am still awake.”

“The Glass Bottle” - Keri Austin

[thisbodyofwater]

I can’t believe it. I think I feel alive.

[thisbodyofwater]

Outakes

[nickiezimov]

[thisbodyofwater]

[thisbodyofwater]

Long weekend in the sun

[lee-krasner-art]

Hieroglyphs No. 12, 1969, Lee Krasner

Medium: gouache,paper

https://www.wikiart.org/en/lee-krasner/hieroglyphs-no-12-1969

[thisbodyofwater]

Ode to Being Human

1.     Humanity is so hungry, isn’t it? Swallowing desires to know which other planets have been polarized by big brains capable of love languages, of picking fruit, and pledging a spinning allegiance to a star we do not have a name for

2.     Another movie melts in my mouth. The scene is milky, washed out while the heroine goes to war with her own body. I pick a stray eyelash off my arm wondering - Was it suicidal or just outcast?

3.     I pick up the phone to say something. That I can smell your sunburn. Can hear your dirty spoons in the sink swap stories, recalling every ridge on the roof of your mouth.

4.     Another cuss word becomes self-aware, flings itself at super speeder. On the exit ramp, I am just another sun baked engine day dreaming of a placid parking spot in the shade.

5.     Today is louder than self-composure can claim. Today is just yesterday sprinkled with expletives, frosted with a foggy pink idea that my body has known great heights in spite of the reality of heavy flat tires, and mechanical toot– toots. (The absence of wings doesn’t mean a thing.)

[thisbodyofwater]

Constantly fighting a mad desire to face plant into Holly’s gorgeous garden (at Peachtree City, Georgia) https://www.instagram.com/p/BzoSDBoA7RCkF99e70zm2trQe9yLDFHG7V8I9M0/?igshid=3st9gj56hgi4

[thisbodyofwater]

I don't have anything to ask, I just wanted to thank you for writing Moon River. I have it bookmarked on my phone, and sometimes I read it when I'm sad, so thank you. All your work is wonderful, but that one is my favorite

Goodness, how sweet this is. Made my heart swell endlessly ❤️❤️❤️

[violentwavesofemotion-deactivat]

Carol Ann Duffy, from Selling Manhattan: Poems; “Homesick,” wr. c. 1987

[1030-42929-deactivated20191009]

Portrait n°12, 1985

Patrick Tosani

[thisbodyofwater]

Months have escaped me. Have I grown up and grown out of my poetic lean? I am 27 now. Completed another quick trip around the sun; I gain speed every year. 26 already feels foreign to me. Like I spoke another language and cried for company I can’t remember keeping. Now I light candles and hum strange melodies while the sky restlessly turns itself over. I stand in the shower and consider all this skin. Who was touching it this time last year? And was I eating like I should be? Was I drinking too much? Was I medicated? I step onto the bathmat and spy a six legged intruder in the sink. I turn the water on and drown him. This is what I am capable of. In the mirror, I can see that I am still very much myself. Dark circles. Gray eyes. Head shaped like a flower pot, and there is surely something growing there, but I am still not convinced of its beauty. There is a story I read recently about a girl and a dog she couldn’t keep. I carry it around in my chest like a very real heartbreak and sometimes it makes me feel hot. Little things will do that to me. When I went to Chicago this month, Briana held my hand at the hotel bar and I couldn’t tell her, “You’re the only person that will do this with me,” because wow, it made me feel so small and so happy all at once. I’m really just waiting for someone to tell me they saw the moon last night and it wrapped them up in something gentle. But it could be anything. They could say they sat on a cold bench and compared people’s spines in the park until the dark pushed everyone inside. It would do something to me on the inside, I swear. At home, I fall asleep on the couch three times a week. I always lock the door, but the road outside my unit lets the cars into my dreams. I can’t hear what you’re saying through the rush of red lit traffic, but your mouth is moving; I’m sure of it. I’m convinced you are praying. But no…no. You are holding my arm or my knee or my elbow and demanding an answer. “Where did this bruise come from?”

[thisbodyofwater]

breathe in, breathe out | #dslr https://www.instagram.com/p/BnzPpCahaU5/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=oeyl8zadjcbv

[thisbodyofwater]

A delicious delirium. A mad desire to numb everything out. Will it ever end? In a haze, I drive to work. Every morning the world is cast golden as a soft gem or grey in humid cloud cover. Either way – I am still figuring it out. My presence here feels poisonous in the prettiest way. I am addicted to the climb. Salivating for even the aftertaste of success and I am groveling grotesquely for acknowledgement that I am worth the investment. It’s raining tonight. I am drunk on the noise of traffic and absence in the condo. Zak goes to play games at the mansion on Raintree and I get high on being free in our common space. My fingers are left alone to stack plastic cups still wet from the dishwasher, graze the yellow pages of used books, and light cigarettes that leave me starving for a quiet and comfortable conversation.

These drawn out moments of silence are easy to get lost in. I am in a green zone where all I can smell are these oncoming scattered rain showers coming to the aid of hot black roads juxtaposed the sweetness of a particular vanilla lavender candle I cannot seem to find a replacement for to save my selfish life. The condo is at my rare, unchaperoned mercy – everything will burn. No really. I want lights on in all the rooms and my small, sweet flames dancing on the unwiped countertops. I can make any space smell like home. On the porch, I drink wine and lust after runners on the freshly showered sidewalk. Summer has brought all its humidity and a thankfulness for a place in the trees where I can spy on lighting bugs and bear down on all the people I am capable of becoming. I made chicken last night and it didn’t turn black! I smiled thinly at the victory but couldn’t finish the thick, white piece on my plate because I couldn’t stop thinking, “It could be better.”

[anne-sophie-tschiegg]

Willem de Kooning