a cookie dunked in black coffee

i don't know how long she spent thinking about it. this summer was one of brine and vinegar, of pickling and wine and disease. we spent a lot of time talking about things that were dead and had passed us. like your grandfather and my time with my ex boyfriend and who we were when we were kids. dead, dead, dead. i wish i knew this back then to be a sign. that something thick and lofty was in the air, i could feel it, but i think i had been convinced it would pass. i secretly prepared for the end anyway. i regret not writing more love songs, or love poems, or savoring things when they were still alive rather than knowing they were dying and acting preemptively in post mortem. the funniest thing about it all, is that through all of this ache, i would have held on. i have to keep reminding myself we view ache differently. when does good ache become bad ache and when is bad ache just good ache?

by the end of this entry i'll have a love poem written for you.

now suffering is the conversation of late. my friend sat sprawled over my mattress, looking down at me, and reminded me that suffering rules my life. that i chose to let 'bad' things happen to me. and i was instantly defensive and angry, and this morning i couldn't shake away those feelings, and i sat and looked at a picture of myself and thought about joan of arc and started to piece together that my stamina comes from an indulgent cat and mouse game of hedonism and sacrifice. and that i chose this difficulty, and that i didn't have to live like this, and yes in fact, i could participate in life rather than life happening to me, but isn't this my choice? i have my toy soldiers out when i want them, but there could be a healthier way to go about this, but maybe i don't really want it. i love being sick. i love double fisting handles of liquor. i love vomiting. i love adoration. i love worship. i want to be distracted by fleshy and heavy and bleeding things. 

i'm addicted to this dramatic extravagance that's as rich as topsoil.

i once wrote in the margins of a notebook that i wanted love to be made to me like i were in a hospital bed. and last night she said i sit on the shore and wish to be hit by waves, that i seek out tsunamis just for them to push me somewhere. my nature of thrill seeking and curating experiences hasn't failed me, and i did have sex in these metaphorical hospital beds and i did seek out waves to throw me around, and both worked well enough for me, but now the mention of it prods at my soft spots, and i'm forced to reconsider.

ruby said it was easier to think of this all of having a muse.

once we were at the beach and i ran into the water and a wave knocked me off my feet and my glasses fell off. i remember the feeling of grasping for them as they ricocheted off my body. and i started screaming and she ran over to help. when i get too stressed i have to step out of a situation so i went back up to the beach and she wandered the shore until she came up and told me it was a lost cause. so the next couple days i was blind. i couldn't drive, i couldn't bike, i couldn't read. i was blind meeting her family on the fourth of july. i needed to be walked around the grocery store. when i saw my dad the next week he gave me a pair of contacts and i will never forget what it was like to see the definition of tree leaves and the pores of my grandpa's face for the first time again. i thought about how noble it would be to be blind for a year just to be given sight again. how good it would feel when it would be all over. 

i guess i think that's a big difference between us.

we work in delicate parallels.

i fight my hand from disrupting them, of untangling their routes and reexamining their conjunction.

instead marvel at the array of intricacy.

your technicolor tact. 

right here, this tiny looped thread,

that's the sound of your feet skipping in the hallway in the morning.

i kiss it with the fat of my thumb.

i am realizing i can learn what feels good without putting myself through what i know feels bad. that i need to learn how to run to go fast rather than free falling the way through.

but in the mornings, i still sleep through my first alarm but wake up well before seven. i still drink black coffee but i dunk a cookie in it.