Hey Loners,
There are no recipes in this one because I can’t recall a meal I’ve enjoyed– I lied. I seared broccoli rabe in soy sauce and put it on toast with pickled onions and vegan mayo. It was unusual but it was good to me. I liked the burnt and I liked the bitter. Lately I can’t cook and it’s been unusual to look at my pantry and feel my brain clear. I hope it’ll come back from the war because I don’t know how to live without my routines and lately– I feel lost.
A relationship, a friendship ended recently and I think I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that it has been killing me. The loss of a confidant destroyed what remained of self-esteem and I’ll get over it, one day, but for now– I’ll just admit that it happened. I’ll tell you, loners, that I am wounded. I’ll tell you because once I hit send it’s the beginning of getting over; replaying old videos and conversations and you’ll know a thing hurt me and I’ll know a thing hurt me and it’ll become commonplace– it’ll become something that I’ll learn to ollie over one day. For now I’m trying to get the right pop and I keep eating shit but I’m trying to get over it. I swear.
Have I been listening to anything? Been listening to Rory Gallagher. I love him. I’m obsessed. Specifically “I Fall Apart” – I think it’s a perfect love song and I have this deep delusion that I can learn the guitar parts on it. I’m sure anything is possible but it makes my heart hurt and that’s enough to make me hooked. Later in this newsletter I’ll talk about having a crush and how when Rory says in harmony with his guitar’s voice “you’ll be on my mind” I felt that.
I’m sure I’ve listened to other things but my “on repeat” says I’ve listened to Rory Gallagher. It wasn’t a St. Patrick’s Day fling or anything. I love watching videos of him playing guitar. I’ve been picking up my guitar more and wanting to make sense of it. A while back I listened to some teacher say you can pick a muse, it’s okay to have someone you wanna play guitar like and it’s okay to pick someone impossible if it’ll make you play more. I think I want to play Blues guitar. There’s so much to love but somehow I got hooked on Rory Gallagher. To listen to him is to listen to Muddy Waters, Memphis Minnie, and Albert King– you see I’ve got the blues and I’ve finally left the grunge behind for real pain. There’s a sensational moment you should watch where Rory guests on Albert King’s Live At Montreux in 1977. His solo on this is just astounding.
I also love this 1995 appearance of Bjork.
I also love watching this guitar teacher get blown away by Tori Amos’s Montreux 1992 performance. He loses his mind belatedly about her work in the same accurate way I imagine men in 1992 to have received it and it’s both pleasant and amusing. Honestly– Tori’s popularity is reduced by her confessional and vulnerable lyrics and her fierce red hair becomes associated as the grunge guy’s girlfriend instead of just being independent. I like his music break down of it even though I know so little about music theory but I love that he’s freaking out. She’s one of the best musicians. He's freaking out about her craft because she’s crafty– she’s formerly Peabody’s youngest student but also that she’s gutsy because mama made little earthquakes– it’s the tremors for me. Obviously Tori remains one of my idols. She came hungry to Montreux in 1992 and ate it up. She’s absolutely captivating. I recall checking out Little Earthquakes from the library in my town and sitting in the dark of my bedroom after bedtime slowly putting it into my discman by the faint light of the street lamps.
Finally -in present tense- I’ve been watching this Ryuichi Sakamoto performance from 1992. 1992 is a great year for music. It’s from his Heartbeat Tour and ugh, I’ve been watching him all day and this is the sexiest and most fun (in my opinion.) A part of me can’t help but compare it to him in a different interview where discusses how he recorded one song a day to splice together a concert because Cancer had weakened him so much. He mentions that the 60-90 minutes of a concert that he used to do were out of the question. It’s tough, at times, to think about but it’s life. So few of us will have such an illustrious career documented– our vibrance, our diminishing light.
A few days ago I got into a car and went to Philadelphia after going back to Baltimore and the happiest I am lately is when I’m in motion. When there’s wheels moving or I’m in the air– I love to be here but there’s an elation incomparable to the feeling of leaving these days. It was a lovely 24 hours. I got in the car laughing and came home laughing. I fell asleep laughing. A novel time.
We spend time in the car listening to every song that made us scream in the 2000s and giggle and tell secrets– I tell my friend all the people I want to kiss and I blush because I didn’t know I even had such a list. I’ve got this crush that makes my heart hurt but it doesn’t make me want to write. I can’t tell you what they look like because I’ve never seen them in my poems. They’re tall enough to comfortably kiss me on the forehead and tell me to go to bed and that’s more than enough. Even to tell you I want to stop typing but I’ll go on for the sake of letting you witness desire. It’s been years since I had a crush. This one feels just like a teaser of something that could be great - it’s just nice to feel that outward emotion. It’s so superficial. It’s not enough to heat the house. It just makes me flush. I’m hungry for motion—always.
I don’t know how to satiate it. Maybe I want to go on tour and find the proper exhaust of being miles between showers and no room for privacy.
In Philly I do another show and I bring all my friends along— some of my favorite poets, some of my favorite humans that I rarely get to connect with and I swear, it was a room of joy. I have to write it here because I’ll qualify it if I linger too long— it was great. It’s nice to bring people together. I’ve always wanted to have people over for dinner but I don’t have enough dinnerware.
I tell my therapist that it meant something to me– a breakthrough – when I witness that I can bring people together when I can’t even figure out my own life. They’re not perfect but I suppose this is what it feels like when you write a bunch of songs and people want to sing them with you– you can hear the voices even when you can’t hear your own. They say “you’re here, stay with me.”
Today I woke up on my couch and I hope that I’ll feel better soon. I leave the house incognito these days. I love to wear wigs and pretend that I’m someone who feels lighter, happier. Glasses? No glasses. A bit of concealer. Sometimes it’s just because but sometimes it’s a ritual of disguise. These days I’m back to journaling the things I’m grateful for in my doc titled “Garden Of Earthly Delights.” I started it with Mitchell but now it’s just something I do alone. I’m grateful for Luke’s love of Bob Dylan.
I am grateful for my friends that laugh at all my jokes - George, Luke, Anna, Wy. I’m grateful for house shows. I’m grateful to see Lish and say “your hair is so long.” Or when I saw Colin and said “you’re not wearing a hat.” It sounded so dumb. It was so dumb but I felt so happy to be on the side of the road, to be in the bar, to be at the house to say it. I like how Abbey smiles and that she’s easy to love and she’ll drive you to the hospital or home with a concussion– no questions asked.
I’m grateful to book little literary shows and to talk to people about how words feel so cool in our mouths and in our hands. It’s nice to hear people tell their stories. I can’t say it’s always as refined as a poetry show should be but it reminds me of the hushed mumble of listening to my Mom’s AA meetings from the kitchen of the Church, of the halfway house. She’d sit in a group house meeting and I’d shove bananas in my mouth. I recall each two dozen and throwing up potassium just as she shared her hope that one day I’d call her mom again.
I’m grateful for two twin boys that giggle and beg to be tickled. I’m grateful to hold Z’s baby and watch her fall asleep in my arms. I describe the day to her. Her mom is pulling weeds and her dad is sitting next to me. I’m grateful that people go along with my crazy ideas and that Mary Ellen climbed into a car with me and went to Philly. I’m grateful for a text that said “Kelly, you’re so cool. I hope we can be friends.” I thought to myself “how much longer will I be here, can I fulfill this request?” I’ve been a lousy friend, I’ve been a lousy daughter– what kinda person could I be if I didn’t have this heavy heart?
I’m making these plans and I’m making plans to heal. I’m grateful to Vivi and how she says “sorry not to be that person” before saying the most caring thing. I’m grateful for spring time. I feel a little more alive. I was holding Z’s baby and we’re watching an old neighborhood cat curl up under a blue pickup truck. The wind is breezy. I’m grateful to stand here and call her my best friend. I’m grateful for Paul and G and their care and specific kinda love. I’m grateful to spend my day typing half of this in a tattoo shop. I’m grateful to have hands covered in ink from screen printing. I’m chasing a dream I can’t quite remember these days— it’s one of the ones where I’m free and I’m hoping to have my dreams chase me someday soon.
I’ve had this hideously heavy heart since maybe last year or maybe my whole life. I recall that I sat in George’s girlfriend’s apartment and sat with this heavy, heavy heart. I ate Thai food and washed it down with the coldest class of jasmine tea. I walked in Central Park with this heavy heart and it feels as if it’s lately gotten harder to carry around. I want to break it up. I want to give away pieces of this heart.
I’m somewhere I don’t want to be but I also don’t know where I belong– still and it’s an ever growing complaint in my life. I’m not sure where home is anymore and I’m not sure if this couch is even mine anymore. Té visits and sits on my couch making new beats and curled up comfortably. He sits there and I sit on the floor playing with my guitar. We share the silence of a place I don’t understand anymore and I look at my garden of earthly delights– I’m grateful when I see the efforts.
I can see the names and I recite them like a prayer.
I’m grateful for you, loner.
Godspeed,
Kx
alone in my room is a periodic but not consistent newsletter about a ficus hoping to go to heaven when it dies.