how to frost a cake

the crumpled letters i send, or the handfuls i don't.

in the last century, you could mail a letter, and it'd be gone. paper & ink, and it's out of your hands. everything exists in digital these days, so yeah, all the re-living, re-experiencing, & re-interpreting.

take the photo. if it's good, print it, & hang it.

wherever you go, your life exists in record. there is no escape.

i think about moving. i think about quitting everything i've started.
why is there this need for continuity? why can we not have one-shot beautiful projects?

there is such a need for career narrative, for journey & goals, in this long novel, but maybe my life is poems.

this was joy in lunch in my mother's kitchen, on a restless afternoon. that was croutons from a box, poured into slavic soup made by my best friend's mother. that was winter skies, all pale and grey and bright. that was a soft darkness on my hard floor in the room where light seeped in from the hall. that was the radiator, and the highway is a slow sweep. what is light, but orange streaks of evening on the walls, when you are awake & existentially alone?

one boy sees a sad girl he wants to save, another, a muse. one boy sees creative mania, another, a fierce drunken mess. one, a bullshitting hustler, another, a wide-eyed innocent. one, a crazy girl for pure hot fucking, another, a sweet lady for a doting wife. this one, a strict, mean-mouthed bitch, another, kindness, kindness, kindness. what is play, and what is heartfelt?

detached or a gush of emotion. it's lenses. they all see something different, and are either aggressive or intimidated, angry or sad, adoring or bitter, this or that. desire is a bitch, but they are the ones driving these emotional fantasies in their minds.

i'm just a girl, but girls are an easy medium for gratification, psychological or physical.
if i wasn't a girl, i'd be a bottle of pills. one pill gives you orgasms, and another makes you weep, and yet another does nothing at all, so maybe you change your prescription, which may or may not help you find happiness or satisfaction, or the different lens of experiencing the world, that your soul seeks.

love is hard because on the rare occasion i find someone i feel about on a deep-in-my-guts level, sometimes i know i am just a form of escapism for his soul. he doesn't know me. i mean, he knows bits of me, to be sure, and maybe has a sense of what i look like, but what he loves most, is this idea of me that he's got, and he doesn't want to ruin that idea. he's already in love with this idea. how do i compare with her?

well, i don't care how i compare with this ideal, but i can sense when a boy is falling in love with some idea who shares my face and body, but not my soul. i'm not mad about it. it's just not what i'm looking for.

it's not too hard for me to fall in love, because i fall in love pretty damn easily, but it feels pretty bad when i fall in love with someone who's already in love with an idea of me, so i stop myself. it's like a stop & go, which doesn't feel fantastic, but it's okay.

i'm complex, but not complicated.
i like cheese & bartending. i like poems and long wanders. i like the rain, & playing my guitar.

if i didn't love so many things in the city, & the city itself, and if i didn't have family (who don't need me, but sort of do), and friends who are family, - i'd leave. i'd move to some other city, somewhere warm, and i'd bartend, and spend my free time writing, & making music, & wandering beaches. i don't need a lot to be happy. i do a lot, & help people create & do what they love, because it is the next best thing, to doing what i love, which can wait. people are in your life, for loving.

if i could, i'd have even more awesome people in my life, and maybe the less awesome people already in the fringes of my life would become better people to themselves & others, but whatever. we're all doing our best.

i thought i was falling in love last year, but eh. our lives weren't falling together, and i didn't force it. there was so much uncertainty. if i could, i would have him in my life. it would make me pretty fucking happy, but it looks like he's moved on. i'm all on and off missing him, but i've been mature about it.

what is love? / i don't know, but i know when people are special to me.

some people just make you happy because they exist. for the last part of the year, when my mom was in the hospital, and we were in the ward thinking that she would die at any moment, we talked for a really long time, & honestly.

i've got an overachiever's streak, but in the face of the lives of others, i realize that i don't really care about the rat race. i have nothing to prove. i don't need money or fame. i do what makes me happy, and not at the expense of others.

if i died tomorrow, it'd be okay.
maybe i'll die without finding a romantic partner, or having created a child, but i did awesome stuff already. everything else in life, is just frosting. my life is a cake, crafted with all these shades of love.

i only wanted a small bite.

All those love letters.

I would practice writing them when I was young, to the favored soul of my affections.
Each carefully folded note, was art, an afternoon in dedication, to desire.

And on the page, I'd sweep ridiculous sentiments, in blue, the twilight winter sort, because black will not do. Words on the face, & on the threadbare spine. I'd illustrate, on the paper, with stars & other images.

Art, & art.

It was the romantic poet in me.
You could bottle those letters. Tie them in satin ribbon.
Hang them from ceilings, or throw them somewhere dark.

So much potent emotion; you could swim in the feelings, or float in these steady, moonlit oceans.

It was a romance. Belief was irrelevant; only the quality of the ink mattered. It was a token of my affections, truths polished into beautiful fiction.

It was a world, & I consolidated it for you. You dreamt it first.
It was the stuff that caught your fancy, favorite bits from strangers' lives, & film.

Everyone wants to fall in love. It's just the particulars that are different.

Your love was a world, a scape that was unbodied & incomplete.
Something left to be desired. It was the emotion that was lacking. You had the lines, & drafts in your mind. Maybe it was the sense of something, beyond you.

So I filled it. I spilled narrative into your hidden wishes. I took your truths, cast dramatic, flattering light; filled in the shadows, softly, but deftly, like any sincere artist, & made the universe gleam.

You had a base, a rough charcoal sketch on an art-store canvas. I chanced upon it. I said I loved it. I said I wanted to see it. And you loved the way I was excited about this work, this expression of this inner world of yours. You loved how serious I took your concept of romance & desire. It was validation, which you didn't need, but liked, loved. And you wanted more. So you started sketching, more carefully. I'd bring interesting pigment, the constructive support, and the praise, and you began coloring, and it was not fast enough for your liking, so I'd help shade in the empty spaces, using my fingers & brushes. You'd have trouble with sharp detailing in some areas, and I'd make it prettier.

I loved the process. You put yourself into it. You were making something beautiful. Most times, I just looked on, interluding with affection. It was your concept; I was just the appreciative freelance mercenary.

And then the work was finished.
And it was lovely, so I said so. And as it dried, I congratulated you, & curtsied.
I kissed you, and it was not the, "Yes, look at you, my love, my one-and-only champion, let's live in this world of desire.", but more of a "Well, that was fun, and look at those highlights, but I'm exhausted and still have so many things to do. Maybe next-time, and you're tired, too, aren't you?"


-----


Was it about desire? Sex, with a twist of intimacy? Love?
Do we need to run literary criticism on outdated, parallel narratives?

It was your fantasy.
What is mine? I don't have one.

I lived a few, a long time ago, when I was younger, & more restless, & less happy.

Now, I live in the real world.

Is realism is ugly? I don't think so.

I love the truth, darling. I love reality.

I love the concrete, & the rain, & wandering in the city in the dark. I live my romance. I'm in love with the evening, & the sweet warmth of the streetlights, and couples all about. I love my scarves, & the poetry. I love coffee, black, or tea, earl grey, in the tall cup, in my hand.

Why did I help you make your world then? / I felt like it. I wanted to. You wanted me to.
It's just not my world. It's not the image of my happiness. What is the image of my happiness then? Doesn't look like the one I helped you build. You've got a fantasy world you like to escape into, and I'm an escape-artist, in all senses. I craft fantasies. I just don't care to live in them.

I didn't lie to you.

It was just what we were doing. I didn't promise things I couldn't promise, and you can't promise that sort of thing anyway. I don't love the way you loved. I didn't want to stay. You'll find other characters. You'll be okay.

You were lonely, and maybe you thought I'd make it stop.

I'm not lonely. 
I'm in love. I've been in love.

When I meet him, I won't even know.

We will be madly in love with each other, and not even know. We won't recognize it. We might not even be together for very long. Our lives might not even fit, but right there, in that very moment of intersection, it will be love. Who I am, at that very moment, and who he is, at that very moment, those two souls as they exist, will have found home, will have found a oneness.

And I will think, that I will never fall in love again, because I'm already in love.

I can't lay in bed with you, nor any other, because my heart wants to be out in the streets.
He is out there. The air is cold, but lovely.  My coat hugs my body, but it's this love that keeps me warm.

My love, is the stars in winter, & dark, clear skies.

My love, is the snow on Friday evenings. My love, is slush, & boots, & the view of alleyways on fire-escapes. My love, is 3am, and we are so tired, & wired-tired. My love, is not daylight, but pillows pushed up by the windows, and a mixture of cold, & naked bodyheat. My love, is I-am-so-sick-and-the-dark-of-my-room-and-the-dim-light-of-my-computer-is-a-comfort. My love, is the echo of pop-dance songs, and some other soulful music, in the back of my head. My love is paint, and the Met on a Friday night alone, in the modern gallery. My love, loves me, and does not, all in the same way. My love, is an existential despair on Saturdays, and the solace of solo wanders in afternoon sunshine on Sundays, and is a work that is loved, and not loved, all at the same time. My love, is digital paperwork, which translates to striking visuals & heartfelt feelings, on white screens.

My love, is poems, and not-love-letters.


This is not a love letter. I am not writing my undying love. This is not an emotional fantasy, which love sometimes is. This is not airport goodbyes & a flood of tears.

I am not saying anything.

I'm leaving.
I'm walking out my door, and it is a Thursday evening in November, and I'm in love with nobody.