such earthly delights #3

i haven't seen the phantom thread but there are days i think i should

Hello,

Did you eat anything delicious this week? What was it?

1. I’ve been making this drink with frozen lime pulp, mint, chia seeds, almond milk and condensed milk. It’s refreshing and sweet. It’s very summer. I am slathering chilled aloe vera over my skin after being roasted in the sun and it feels good. I awake after being sun-soaked in a black dress walking all over Charles Village topless and on top of my comforter because it’s that time of the year. I take slow movements and feel more animal than human as I press my glutes to the back of my ankles and stretch long.
   
   Aloe feels like it can solve anything. I feel so grateful to the serrated, freaky plant and its holy gelatin that seems to calm the cries of my heart. There’s an urgency and heat to everything lately. I have several arguments last week and realize it’s that part of summer where the molecules quicken, everything feels damp and like freshly swollen bug bites. Everything hurts, everything is humiliating, everything is fun, everything is stupid, everything is beautiful, and everything is looking for the perfect black dress to wear to the coming apocalypse.
   
   I assume the apocalypse is more funeral than a spring wedding attire but perhaps I get it all wrong it’s mostly like Kentucky Derby looks and I forget to have a sun hat that matches my purse?

2. I can’t believe I can drive a car. I drive from my house to Al’s and feed his cat. I sit with Rotini and we watch Charlotte exclaim “What’s so good about being a Jew?” in season six of Sex and The City. Her partner despite not keeping kosher has dropped a bomb that he cannot marry her if she isn't Jewish. In bed, their argument is ended with silence and he inquires about it and she says “Well I can’t say anything now that you brought up the Holocaust” and rolls over to fall asleep. I drive to Western Maryland with Anna and Jordan to western Maryland to attend a pickle festival. I buy horseradish pickles from a woman named Arlene. She put her foot in those pickles— they’re delicious. I drive my car from western Maryland to Al’s to feed the little cat and he chirps and purrs as I pack up my car. I drive from Al’s to see Claire make sweet sounds at Rhizome. I am exhausted and can’t really admit it. I want to drive some more but I don’t want to drive home just yet. I wait a bit and watch Claire tear down her set and then and only then I get back into the car and find my way home.

3. All my plants are alive and weirdly so am I— I am trying. It hurts but I want to be better about relationships and boundaries. It’s all the horrors of the world that make me want to tell people I love them or thank you for all your love and support. I don’t buy any flowers this week because I won’t be home to enjoy them.

4. Toddler tells me to stop and I think he’s hurt. He says, do you feel that? Can you feel that? I can’t believe it. It’s a warm breeze. And he runs trying to grip the wind like the tail of a cat or dog and giggling, shrieking. I say, gentle, gentle, as if the wind will yield for pets like a cat or dog.

5. M. is running another 26.2 miles and calls me at 5am. What did you do today? I read poems and droned on my Casio keyboard and I think it goes well. I’m doing a show at Enoch Pratt next week and it’ll be just an expansion and evolution of things I’ve been trying to bring together. It’s nice to see Charles and Sol and to hear the poems of my friends and perhaps it’s my favorite thing. It’s my favorite thing to drive Mark to the show and we separate into our own groups and watch Truthcult play their last show and Emily’s voice is bellowing like a siren announcing the last song, a beloved song and everyone goes crazy.
   
   I buy a hoodie and feel sentimental at the Grand Canyon taking a rock home. I tell myself I want to remember something about this night. M. is making fun of me. You dirty stopout! It’s so early, go to bed. It’s slang for someone who stayed out so late. I return home like a soldier with no memory after belonging to the streets for the night.

6. I am double fisting drinks at Sophomore and talking fragrance with Emma. We are talking fantasies and sillage while waiting in line.

7. Aeon’s eyes are blue and I didn’t know that. I’m not famous for making eye contact but I can’t believe I never knew they were blue-blue-blue. Maybe it’s because they’re sitting serenely on a blue bench with a bright blue sky behind them that makes me notice. I am breathless for a moment. So blue.

8. I’ve been trying to have people over for dinner. I have this fear people will come over and scream “dear God, your floorboards are covered in dust and holy shit, this is your rug” and I have nightmares about it. I have anxiety someone won’t be able to find a fork or they will be terrified by how small my bathroom is. My therapist has said that’s ridiculous for years and I know that. I’ve been trying to make it somewhere people could be and I’m proud of that effort. It’s the effort, I guess, I want to bring people near and into a part of my life I hide like a fresh wound. The wounds always feel alive but they’ve long healed and some are keloids and yet I am feel shame and terror letting people come too close to seeing me. I just want to be easy going and like all my friends that are natural hearths but I settle for aiming to be a electric stove.

9. The pain leaves me on Tuesday - there was this constant ache and sear in my joints and I had to work through it. I feel it go sometime in the morning on a walk and I feel so easy. Everything feels easier after that— even the bad parts.

10. This poem by Walt Whitman:
    

    Here the Frailest Leaves of Me 
    Walt Whitman
    
    Here the frailest leaves of me, and yet my strongest-lasting:
    Here I shade and hide my thoughts—I myself do not expose them,
    And yet they expose me more than all my other poems.

Godspeed,

Kx