Take Me Down To You

I slip into your dreams, sometimes.

It is not by accident, nor is it by revenge.  I simply want to see you- the rise and fall of your chest.

I'm not sure why.

I sit on the end of your bed, legs folded, and watch you.  An obstinate angel or, simply, a stubborn intruder.

I watch the sands of sleep fall onto your face, and follow to see which sands stick, and which slide down your skin to lay at your side.

It's strange to think, in these dream-like states, that if the house were to go up in flames, I would not move, nor would I wake you.

(click on the photo: kill this by Yannis Angel via Apendixes tumblr)

The Pulsation Inside of My Mouth

Things feel red, lately.

Not red with anger, but red as in human.

Sexual. Messy. Carnal.

No matter how much I try and train my brain to be diligent and to follow the barks of self discipline, my body, with the slightest movement, will hand me a shredded pile of the leather I've tried to harness its wants and memories with.

It happens so quickly and easily.

A thought crosses my mind, and although I attempt to think myself away from it, my pulse has already quickened; the center of my palms already a damp want.

(pause)

Last night I was sitting at an open air cafe talking with the Spanish architect I have befriended.  Everything around us smelled of liquor and gravel. I was engrossed in our conversation and didn't notice the people on the street as they walked by the cafe's large windowless window, until one person walked by whose movements reminded me of someone I used to touch. And- like that- my chin snapped in the direction of the person as they walked by.  Following my gaze the Spanish architect asked, purely,

Do you know him?

The question didn't register right away. Then I shook my head trying, discreetly, to calm my body.

No,... no.  I thought it was someone I knew, and lifted a steady glass of water to my lips.



(photo : La Naissance des Pieuvres by Nathan Duarte via Gacougnol tumblr)

[This entry may be read listening to Idioteque somewhat loudly for the pounding and urgency of sound]

Bedroom Entanglement

Recently, I've been all about off-the-shoulder sweaters and glasses while reading late at night.

There is nothing better.

Lost-in-a-sweater with thigh high opaque socks, a spill of hair tied ridiculously on the top on my head, and panties as obscene as they are silky to be seen by no one but my locked bedroom door and tangle of sheets.

What can I say? I'm in my Book Romancer stage.  It's something I do from time to time when I feel like there have been too many people scratching at my door, talking at me on my phone, or simply expecting too much from me.  I reach my tipping point, grab the most brain-tantalizing book I can get my fingers on (The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafón as the case is, currently), and march directly into my room. I lock the door, shut off the phone, and make a promise to myself to never come out again.  I make vague checklists in my head pondering the viability of this plan between the chapters that I read (where will I pee? who will pay my rent? can one live off of books if one eats every page after they read it? i won't miss the outside world. is it cheating if I email to have a pizza delivered through my window?) and eventually, fall asleep: my defiant face pressed half upon my pillow, half upon the beauty of a thick and printed page.

(pause)

Other than that: I feel myself craving salt and pepper hair'ed adventures again as of late.  I am mid-air (think: trapeze), knees slipping from the novelty of fresh faced babes as my hands reach to grasp the smoke-laced creak and season of older spines.




Be well; be loved. 


-k.

(photo by reka nyari via slimgrape tumblr)

Deep Sea Diver, or, Message Bottles Bubbling Up From the Bottom of the Ocean

Yesterday I saw a photograph of a watch, an anniversary present, that had been found in a burned up van that was teetering on the edge of a cliff. Of course there is more to this story, but what is relevant to what I want to write, here, is that, aesthetically, it looked like something pulled out of the depths of the sea.

How things are submerged and then resurface has it's own murky history.  We push down into the pressured depths of memory at times, in order to search for particular lost or favorite images.  But there are other times that the memories surround us without our conjuring.  An instant and complete submersion. And what is seen in these instant envelopings can be as surprising as it is consuming.

What I cannot control (thoughts; memory) I research in order to understand.  It's childish, really.  Reading about the neurology of memory in hopes that some of these memories will fade away when, in honesty, I don't want them to.

I've thought about returning to that photo booth. White placards smelling of black markers.

But they have yet to make a photo booth that fits: One that plummets downward into the nautical abyss, equipped with a waterproof camera and adequate pop flash, its backdrop curtain staying put.



-k.


(image from airows tumblr)

[title is a nod towards the Angel Haze song I can't stop listening to, lately, for exact and general reasons.  Check it out, but ignore the video. (It's a lyric video and thus is just corny). Just listen, instead.]

The Fortune of a Black Winged Home Upon Your Shoulders

And as I sit by a vase holding seven bright yellow tulips to write to you, I want you to know that I have not forgotten. A mug of steaming mint tea, two ice cubes added and melted (the shit is always too damn hot and I'm always too damn impatient) next to me so that I may cup it with my hands from time to time to remind us both that I can feel.

Take the mug, wrap it with both hands, breathe mint deep the into my eyes; my nose. Swallow.

(pause)

I've had thieves try to convince me that they were my home.  Did they really think I would fall for it?  It's like experiencing something from a romance novel that has been reverse-engineered by an asshole: It's too easy to see.

Let me remind you that I am an expert witness.  And while I have yet to define or justify my expert status, I can tell you this: 

These eyes and this heart may love as fully as the bright of these tulips, but this dart-eyed crow upon my shoulder remembers what I have come from, and whispers reminders to me based upon the direction of my feet.  Cautions me.  Makes certain of the direction of my toes.

I may forgive as easily as a turn of the page, but this is coffin-closing different from returning to a rotten house disguised as a home.

When I write home- in pen; in thoughts- I know exactly who I am writing to.

(pause)

Glory be to the ink-spilt feathers that look over me. People find you leering and crude, but they secretly envy your loyalty and insight all the same.


be well; be loved.

-k.


(image credit to: cabinhome tumblr)

Why Stalking Victims Do Not Enjoy Anonymous Flowers and Other Should-Be-Obvious Shit

Most women have experienced some kind of violence by men.  Usually in multiple forms, on multiple occasions. This whole "acting like survivors of violence are new or rare" is bullshit, statistically and based-in-reality speaking.

I was talking with a friend of mine this morning about a book I read a long time ago.  The book said- in total binary and heteronormative language, but go with me here- that the main experiential difference between men and women is that a man's biggest fear with a woman is that she will laugh at him, while a woman's biggest fear with a man is that he will kill her.

To folks who did not grow up as girls/women and do not live as one:

Be aware of this huge ass difference, and let it inform your actions.




(photo credit: Kayama Matazo's Frozen Forest)

Silver Slivers Upon My Tongue, or, Things I Think About in the Shower

As soon as he started playing, it all came back to me.  Blossoming in front of my eyes above the stage that held the single, spotlighted strong back of the man playing piano.

The two handmade bars of soap that you brought to me from the monastery in the woods.  One, a tar and clove and tea tree oil smelling rough cut bar : because you knew the smell of astringent and dirt turns me on, satisfies me.  This is something we have in common.  The second was plumeria, I imagine at the advice of your female friend and co-worker who went with you. (Such an odd presence she always had to us- advising you in such gendered directions.  I loved it.  You knew I got off on the feeling of my cock pressed against the inside of my perfectly pressed pants.  She knew that you should offer me flowers with a bowed head and open glass doors for me.)

I knew these two, thick bars of soap would be the last time I touched something that had been touched by your hands. Given to me by them. You produced them from your coat pockets. One each. Your hands were awkward. Uncertain.

How I would bathe myself with them in the shower. Savoring them. Wanting to save them, but not being able to.

I would take the bar into my hands
steam enveloping me
and
melt it into my breasts
around my nipples
letting the scent absorb into my skin
be inhaled into my lungs. 
I would slide it down my stomach
to the insides of my thighs
the backs of my thighs
up across my ass to my
lower back
around to my stomach
slide up my chest and behind my neck
where I would hold it
imagining you
holding onto me
one more time
the weight of your hand
behind my neck.


k.



(thank you to Nils, and company, for an incredible conjuring of images that night)
(thank you to refinery29 tumblr for assisting in finding this image from Anna Sheffield's lookbook)
(thank you to Alfred Hitchcock for the remnants of Psycho in my mouth and psyche, having watched it for the first time ever yesterday night.)

"I Looked Without Seeing, Like Someone Who Arrives at a Party From Which He Knows the Only Person Who Really Interests Him Will Be Absent"

What I've learned in the past few years is that I am no good at waiting.  I pretend to be. I distract myself with interesting jewels and objects to fascinate me. Sometimes in the form of paint, sometimes in the form of ink, usually in the form of images.  Those that make me salivate.  Sometimes, they are books.  Sometimes, they are people.  I learn leagues from all of them, and breathe in the scent of their pages and binding as deeply as I savor the taste of their skin- but I am waiting.

While I am waiting, I pretend that I am not. It is a feeble attempt to trick some superstition or dead relative my parents always told me would be watching me from above.  To outsmart them.

But I am waiting. And it is as satisfying as any self discipline can be.  Satisfying until the moment my throat opens, parched, sweat pours itself from measured skin, and nails reach out from my fingertips, finally, in unhidden want.

This torturous crumbling happens infrequently but
when it does
there is a pleasure in it's undoing that is quite
remarkable.

-k.





(title credit: A partial sentence from a story in When I Was Mortal by Javier Marías)
(photo credit: from blackmilk tumblr)

One Day, By Virtue of Dérive

It's still coming back to me.

The fingers he was shy about wearing the pages of a book meant for him.

Built for him.

Devoured by him.

The chalkboard paint that covered your kitchen walls and the pristine grocery lists you wrote upon them.

The only time you appeared truly at peace was while reading.

I admired this in you.

I feared it as well.

(pause)

A list of what I remember:

The swish of your hips.  The cut up menstrual pads in your bathroom.  The scent of flowers mixed with pine.  The shelf that held almost every work of Genet.  The pieces of paper taped to the wall telling your story of poverty and...heroin? I never knew which drugs you used. The black bands you got tattooed a few days after you met me to hide the tattoos you were embarrassed of.  You never told me what they were.  Two thick, black bands. One for your mother. One for your father.  They are still very much alive.

(pause)

I dreamt of the scar underneath your chin the night you contacted me. I had not seen it so closely, so vividly in so long.

How deceptive dreams can be.

I think of you often and always.

When reading
listening to music
walking in certain parts of the city.

It is strange
those maps we drew
and how they folded in upon me.

Zarina Hashmi, Journey to the edge of land (1994)

(title reference origin):  Dérive