i’m more a reader than a writer, a passive comma in the midst of life. born to incite something or other, born to launch without ever going anywhere oneself. but there is time. time changes all, time smooths out the edges.
last night, T let me read the first two chapters of his working book. he started writing because he was inspired when we went out and about London for a bit. he started writing because he’s in love with me, but never mind that since he never put it into words. he’s a friend of ours and if dreams fill up the length of lonely days, who are we to begrudge him? in any case, the writing’s good, the writing’s solid and if i push someone to something more than they were, that is achievement in itself. it makes me happy.
it’s strange, this writing, when all i’ve written the last year were essays. creativity has a propensity to seep out when you no longer use it and it takes all the will you have to take it back. all world needs a muse. for burroughs (“naked lunch”, “junkie”) it was joan vollmer, whom he killed by accident and who poured out the guilt in words, whose loss left him to seek a way to replace the void; for nin (“delta of venus”, “spy in the house of love”) it was miller, who interrupted her life and frenzied her with his roguish charm and bohemian life; for me it is you. for i can read all i want but unless i have you near me, unless the warmth of your lips touches mine, ideas cannot solidify into something more than a wispy dream. when you were gone (four weeks and three days, for i was counting) interminable minutes seemed to stretch into infinity. no matter where i was or who with, the thought of you made me ache all over, made me hungry for the staunch presence of you.
now you are back, your touch is fresh and i’m learning to write again.
i could implore you with certainty,
dream on a dream of reality
could be a doll de porcelana
in the whites of your eyes.
i could pretend my uncertainty
was not acerca de ti
but rather a circle you see
in the mud of my eyes.
podía.
si.
*de porcelana –made of china / porcelain
*acerca de ti –about you
*podía. si. – i could have. yes.
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there was a line in streetcar named desire that i remember. it said it’s touching to notice them making their first discovery of love! As if nobody had ever known it before. it resonates, for now the time has come for the bud to be broken and flowers to bloom in the late-spring night air.
the risk is nothing. nothing, really. there are only the long sprawling afternoons this side of summer, when paper is scrunched up into tiny little balls and burnt with a magnifying glass or matches. whichever, the result is all that matters. words are nothing: this air requires action!
and there are trees, so beautiful this time of year. they remind me of walking to school in the summer and inhaling the scent of apple tree blossom with T. those were the days, eh?
but now, no now, those buds will open and blossom will scatter into the hands of a handsome young man that we choose. for me, this sweltering summer, it’ll be you. and, god willing (an expression i borrowed from an altogether more believing friend of mine), next summer also. for T (if we were boys, she’d be a brother from another mother) it will be someone else. Her new beau (a rather lovely Tenessee expression!). her very first. amazing stength and will and beauty.
so here we are, and isn’t it queer to think we shall be here always? in the arms of another, in the throes of spring, the coming summer alighting hopes in every single one of us, as if petards were thrown at the pavement before us, at our feet, at our willing young hearts?
and we can’t help this feeling hopeful. and we can’t pretend we didn’t want this life.
so every year, like clockwork, we will be discoving those cherry soda loves and shedding blossom in each other’s arms.
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will anybody tell me if i’m missing out on life?
will anyone write me a letter just so i know?
and everybody seems to be making a film, a compilation of their thoughts right here, right now. irony is, i’m wasting my words on the wind, across the telephone wires that stretch inside my head. and when i am brave enough to speak my words out, they are spoken to you alone. what about the rest of the world? how will they ever know?
you made a film with your friends. i guess that’s what you do in youth.
me? i used to leave my colouring books blank for fear of spoiling them. funny me.
and whenever creativity came to me, i wrote the words, drew the pictures on scraps of paper. i still have some of them. little pieces of my mind written in quickhand. 
and though none of them relate to you, all that i remember of X is there: they are silent exultations, utterances of pain and dreams. they are free.
sometimes, i still wish i coloured those pictures in.
and sometimes i know there’s no use wishing: it’s all too late now. i’ve sketched my life out in this morning sunshine. whatever happens now was always meant to be.
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glittering soot on her eyelashes 