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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why was the moon shining so bright last night? and the night before last. the night before that it was cloudy but still it managed to peek through. and i don’t know what to say to you. i used to moon-watch when i was studying astronomy at school.
let me fall into this stupour. the whites of my eyes will turn into two big moons to shine on the world in the darkest light. for i am sin.
all sin.
and S is catholic.
beyond all means.
and i no longer know if he believes in love, because he believes in so little by believing in so much. if he ever asks, i shall tell him this much: that i no longer know him, because what he was to me is not compatible with what he is now.
i believe in choice. to me, choice is love.
catholicism is brutal: it gives no choice.
abortion is not an option he told me. what if the pregnancy is the result of rape? i asked. she’d still have to have the child.
my eyes glazed over. i forgot who i was speaking to.
and he’s not sure if he believes in contraception: life hasn’t forced him to think about that yet. how can anybody say that in a world with AIDS?
i’m lost. what does he know of the fire of desire that drives me on and on?
i know sometimes you have to let go and start again, from scratch. but i can’t. not now.
suppose i am Kai, from Hans Christian Andersen’s book, and he is the splinter of troll-mirror that befell into my eye.
how can i run away if it it’s in the mind?
Posted in chapters of my life
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the weekend sweeps me off my feet like you never could.
still, you do it better than X.
he’s been on my mind persistently for the last few days. not because i miss him: no, i’m glad we don’t see each other much. but rather because his presumtion of his own greatness is driving me insane. take for example yesterday – just to prove his superiority over the poor old me, he went and asked all his friends whether they thought he was better than me.
i think you can guess the result.
but, hey, for some reason i didn’t care.
it didn’t upset me at all, but it did make me wonder why he was doing all that. is that his way of trying to retain me in his arms? i don’t think he realises that i never was in his arms and god forbid i ever will be.
he is my project first and my boyfriend second.
not even a close second at that.
that may sound ruthless, but believe me, it ain’t so. i’m only trying to help him, prepare him for the future. at the beginning i thought we could work, but then he disappointed and i thought i’d be a clever idea to try to “improve” him.
just for the hell of it.
i always wanted to “improve” someone – make them appreciate the arts more, motivate them to study harder, show them what it’s like to see perfection so close up, but i realise now that this process requires you to genuinely care for the person and now i’m not sure whether i care any more.
his arrogance will be the death of us.
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“The demand to be loved is the greatest of all arrogant presumptions.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
Posted in chapters of my life
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glittering soot on her eyelashes 