dusty-clementine

[dusty-clementine]

i am the mountain after the sunset. a mass of secrets. a chosen enigma. a solid body of surprises.

i am the pebbles in the beach. a nuisance in softness. an introduction to the waves.

i am a heavy cloud of rain. too obvious. too much. too collected only to burst.

i am your favorite song that you don’t need to hear right now. too unfit for the occasion. too mopey. too gone.

[dusty-clementine]

everything that pain feles like:

1. acidic teeth from too much tea

black tea, black from being

eaten inside out

by wild things

by the sun

by thousands

and thousands

of years, memories

hands, sweat

done it before, tradition

2.

laughter, having to laugh

when you ask me —

what's wrong with you,

wanting to flush razors

or throw them up the roof?

can't you use trash cans

like normal people?

it will be some kind of fun

to throw them up the roof,

I can't reach them after and

I can make a stupid wish

one for each, pretending

they are teeth for the

tooth fairies, pretending

they will grow back

3.

feet sinking, bones crumbling

into the mattress,

shut down, hazy

I can think only so far

before my limbs take over

trembling the panic away

before it blurs the last time

you said you loved me

before the acid reaches

dissolves everything

4.

I carved your name

on the charcoal

dusted cauldron of

ribs stewing outside,

under the trees,

through golden dusk—

maybe, sure maybe

please maybe

may it bring the fires back alive.

[dusty-clementine]

To carry:

- longing (heavy)

- memory (10 tons of it all)

- wishing (quite light, squeeze them with the socks)

- trimmings of old lovers (corner space; not essential)

- ideas of my old self (heavy)

- my real old self (heavier)

- images of places i love (essential, make space)

- silence (hand carry)

- dried flowers you gave me (cupped and sealed)

[dusty-clementine]

These warm nights make me want to study something fun. I'd like to wrap my hair up in a fat mess and open the windows wide. I'd set a pitcher of lemonade by my desk and rest my freshly showered face on the coolness. I want to forget putting clothes on then pour myself a glass. I'd press the glass of lemonade to my cheek and write lines. I want to dance to the freshness that leaves the glass and hops to my body.

[dusty-clementine]

I prefer spring.

I prefer the sea.

I prefer my feet on the ground.

I prefer the rain when I'm a listener.

I prefer the sun when I'm a seeker.

I prefer long walks in campus.

I prefer the campus.

I prefer talking over doing.

I prefer keeping silent together.

I prefer eating with you out of anyone in the world.

I prefer tea because I am left with no choice; caffeine ruins my life as it vivifies it. The trade off was too much.

I prefer the Greater Malefic - Saturn.

I prefer Capricorn in the 5th house, because romance is a serious undertaking.

I prefer quiet afternoons, I prefer 4PM. It's so brief and steady, a pocket of gift in a long day.

I prefer my choices. I prefer to experience.

[dusty-clementine]

“She applies some lotion to her left arm and then, quietly, lies back down in the deckchair, face to the sun, and closes her eyes. Behind her eyelids waves of light move in green and red.”

— Normal People, Sally Rooney

[dusty-clementine]

[dusty-clementine]

Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:

The sun-comprehending glass,

And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows

Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.

— PHILIP LARKIN

[dusty-clementine]

“What if he tells every girl she looks pretty with her hair blowing around her face. And what if I didn’t look pretty at all and it was just because there was no one else around and nothing else to say. What if Swede had sat in the bow of the boat laughing to himself because Jack was being smooth and I was being silly by listening. There is a crack over in one corner of the ceiling of my bedroom and I found myself unconsciously lining my thoughts up on either side—the good and the bad. The nice things to remember and the things that maybe in the sunlight wouldn’t be the same at all.”

— Seventeenth Summer, Maureen Daly

[dusty-clementine]

He was never bored when with her; but he was also happy to be alone, out for whole days on the bay in his boat harpooning fish, when his head went quiet in the sun, or gazing at, reviewing, itemizing his treasures in his cool study or the storeroom, or looking through the new books on ichthyology or electricity or ancient history that he had ordered from London. One never could know enough, see enough. Much longing there. A feeling he was spared in his marriage, a wholly successful marriage—one in which all needs were satisfied that had been given permission to arise. There was no frustration, at least on his part, therefore no longing, no desire to be together as much as possible.

— The Volcano Lover, Susan Sontag

[dusty-clementine]

“Today’s god rises, his long eyes flecked in clouds. He flings his arms, spreading colors; he arches, cupping sky in his belly; he vaults, vaulting and spread, holding all and spread on me like skin.”

— Holy the Firm, Annie Dilliard

[dusty-clementine]

Fellow humans, to whom a year is a long time,

A century a venerable goal,

Struggling for your bread,

Tired, fretful, tricked, sick, lost;

Listen, and may it be mockery and consolation.

Twenty billion years before now,

Brilliant, soaring in space and time,

There was a ball of flame, solitary, eternal,

Our common father and our executioner.

It exploded, and every change began.

Even now the thin echo of this one reverse catastrophe

Resounds from the farthest reaches.

From that one spasm everything was born:

The same abyss that enfolds and challenges us,

The same time that spawns and defeats us,

Everything anyone has ever thought,

The eyes of every woman we have loved,

Suns by the thousands

And this hand that writes.

— Primo Levi