gave my piece away; under.
ill & light. mouth &
things, child.

it was a choke and you are the sick toy that the girls grow bored of.
lights and orgasms, dimming and you are the wrong temperature.

i could, but i'm okay with the dirt on my skin. stones, below,
i am climbing along concrete, rusted metal frames
leave red on my palms and i am so close to the night sky.

i don't write for you, i don't sing for you, and i don't fuck for you.
the comics are eager to please, the laughter abates
a bitter toxin that runs in them; they could do with a breathmint.

i am laughing at the bar. the more it costs,
the slower i go. and they are so easy.

what makes it like this? what makes you think
that love had anything to do with this?

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.

fanny returns to blogging about life. vapidity ensues.

retarded. i'm gonna whup your ass and slap you down if you waste your energy.

does it ever get easier?  i don't mean myself.  i'm happy.  i mean other people.  don't they ever get sick of the routine?

maybe.  it's all got to mean something. or eventually, something is different. so many bodies. what is one more, or one less?  who is don draper, besides a summer man?

or when,
will i be a real girl? you already are. but sometimes i suspect i might be dream figments. something so insubstantial about being alive except when my body thinks it's gonna die and goes oh god and molly blooming at the same time.  hello bdsm joyrides.  meaningless in love, but meaningful in being ridiculously alive.  love is overrated, but also probably one of my favorite timesink indulgence with no payout.  we're all friends in the end, yeah? does romantic love even really exist?

we push people away because we don't really want them.  we're drawn to those who run, so we don't have to run.  it's a sabotage we pretend we can't fight.
eventually everyone tires, so we run inwards, deaden outwards- but not yet.

we're still young. i'm still young.
i bet significantly older people laugh at us when we tell them we know what we want to do in life.

i can sit and mull sometimes.  summer is dead on thursday.  i like ribbons and uncertainty, am bored with obsession.  i know nothing lasts and i don't want it to.

would be nice to have something steady for a while though.
i got over my way-too-enchanted-with-life-wave, and now i'm back to being me. which is good. i'm not a pessimist.

maybe if i derealized or depersonalized less.  (comorbid with high cortisol levels, anxiety disorders, sleep deprivation, half confessions & half bullshit.) it's my reality check when my itty-bitty feel-y-weelies check out.