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Current obsession

Righty-o! We all know by now that I go down music rabbit holes for a while and get fully obsessed along the way. Enter: The Killers.

I was irritated with life one afternoon. I think it was actually the last afternoon of the summer that had any heat involved in it. I wasn’t quite sure how I wanted to spend it; torn as usual between getting something done and truly experiencing life and just wanting to relax and do nothing. Ha! And somehow I found myself sprawled on a lounger in the backyard, earphones on, watching this:

I mean, it was pure glory. I was hot. The kids came and went and played around me. And I was at a concert. And it was a bloody fantastic concert. It had meaning and depth but was also upbeat. There was strutting. There was also irony. And, good lord, there was a dustland fairytale.

That must have been over a month ago and most weekends you can still find me in the bath, bubbles up to my neck, tea or wine in hand, belting out the question ‘are we human or dancer?’ and watching this concert. Scott asked me today if he should be concerned. Ha! Somehow dear Brandon is more threatening than Bob, Gordie, Lana, Tove, and Leonard! I assured him that he was just a part of the recipe and the only worry he needs to have is preparing the budget for a Killers concert in Spain next year.

Here honey, this will warm you up even more:

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Look at me

I dare you to look at me
Turn on the light
Even just a glimmer
Can you see me look at you
Can you lift your eyes to mine
Once again

I dare you to look at me
While your hands are on me
While we pretend
Can you actually lock gaze hard
Can you risk all of it just on that
Once again

Eyes merely display their only truth
Demand the dance
Throw forward the tell
Eyes merely shake on the deal
And bid the resistance a blithe farewell

I dare you to look at me
Look while you speak that way
Look straight into
Can you do that and still utter words
Can you do that and still feign strength
Once still

I dare you to look at me
See me in all my glory
And let me see yours
Can you endure the touch that follows
Can you be still while it lands
Once anew

Eyes merely display their only truth
Demand the dance
Throw forward the tell
Eyes merely shake on the deal
And bid the resistance a blithe farewell
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Rose

She walked in the door, threw her keys and phone on the side table and landed on the couch. She put her feet up, let her head fall back and closed her eyes. The smell from the kitchen was fantastic and the cool air blew in from the window.

He walked over and rested his hands on her shoulders from behind. They instinctually moved forward just enough. He leant close and kissed her on her right temple. His whiskers were the perfect mix of soft and coarse. His scent was home and was enough to let the rest of her body relax.

“He left you another one.” he said and a long stem rose landed on the coffee table in front of her.

“Well you have to admire his persistence.” she said as she leaned forward and picked it up.

She didn’t used to like roses. They were so traditional. So scripted and common. Everyone liked roses just like everyone liked diamonds. How dull.

Leaning back again she twirled it in her fingers and stared at it. She smiled remembering the last time she was given a single red rose, well the last time before the run of these ones. It was highschool. Was she dating someone or not quite yet? How did she even get it? Did it arrive at her house like these ones? She reaches back and searches her memory. Digging past old boxes, dust rising as each is moved beyond. Did her dad find it before she did? Anyway, there was a rose. It was from someone it shouldn’t have been from. Someone who had her in mind and went in search of a single flower and placed it at her threshold. The beauty of it all then was, regardless of the presumed imbalance of power, regardless of the height and broad grin, that she couldn’t have cared less. She wanted neither the rose, neither the man. Today, though, she smirks. How delicious to draw the attention of a soul.

Intriguingly, before this all started, she started wanting roses around her all the time: in her garden growing wild, in vases on her desk, and their colour dripping off her nails. Her writing came easier when they were on the desk staring back. The way their perfect petals fanned open on such sturdy stems for so long. They endured more than most flowers, whether cut or planted. These were not the roses she gazed upon as a child or teen, these were different. She was starting to understand the allure.

Again, she put down the flower.

She pushed herself off the couch and walked over to him. She leaned against his back as he tended to the stove. When you were young flipped on on the player. What an anthem. She could tell, forehead resting between his shoulder blades, that he was smiling.

Photo by James Lee on Unsplash

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She sat

She sat on his knee
She was happy, purely free
I understood different
And so did he

She sat on his knee
Younger, shining so brightly
He was not this way
His virtue alee

She sat on his knee
I watched, I could see
He was so far lost
From himself, but not from she

She sat on his knee
I wanted to plea
Get her off, go away
Don't touch her again, don't touch me

But, she sat on his knee
Part of unchanged history
He sat with her there
Then he touched my knee
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Can you stand it

I want you as a brother
Can you bear to stand it
I want you for my answers
Truth free of lover's thrift

Can this thing be done
Can we fool boredom's fake lust
Are you considering my offer
Or just leaving moments to rust

I want you as a brother
Lended strength without request
I want you at ten pm
My head unbound on shoulder, on chest

Ya we locked eyes once
Sweet, subtle and swift
You didn't see what you thought hon
That wasn't a mistress's gift

I want you as a brother
Much older, taller, stronger
I want you not as ever had before
But for an eternity longer
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She kneels.

She kneels over him.

Here many times before; starting to feel like unknown territory.

The unfamiliarity so needed.

The light is such that she can’t quite see his eyes. If there were more light, she wonders. He is there in complete peace. A quiet ocean depth that holds its tempest above. A million miles can be traveled in a moment and she goes there and back.

She has walked most the way through life with a holographic appearance of certainty and destination. Decisions come easily as, really never are there hard ones. Her fire-lit belly longs over and over for a day that involves just one hard one rather than the parade of mediocre constantly presented. So, here, both he and she often fall mistakenly into the lull that she is the same. Not interested in the delicate or suggested. Not meek.

Trouble is, this is the armory.

Tonight, she wants to wipe it all blank and start again. To pluck the dead buds, leach out the poison, to blood let. How frustrating the path that leads to the writer’s sharpened tongue also the one that restrains arms and bodies from the intimate. To feel hands for the first time; rough and warm and firm. To feel lips for the first time, tentatively asking. To be inhabited as a holy land. And to believe in that land. To do all of this completely bare; new skin breathing free from the armor pieces previously locked in place. No sense of wondering if the hands that land on it will be marveled or not.

So she stares harder. The clouds move slowly. Wind blows through the window and the moon’s light enters instructively into the room. Eyes are seen. He knows all of this and more still, and just lies in wait. And what she has been so worried about happens; she cries. She can’t stop. Her hair falls in her face and sticks to her cheek. Her hands brace her panting chest on his. She can’t believe it happened, she can’t believe it keeps her still, she wants anger and strength, and fiercely hates that she knows that means surrender. Tonight. Another million miles crossed.

She bends down. His hands find that sacred no man’s land. She rests her forehead on his and asks someone, anyone, to lead her the rest of the way.

Photo by Fezbot2000 on Unsplash

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Muse-ic (3): Dance me purple.

You tipped your hat. A grin. A smirk. Your age completely vanished. Or maybe that was a wish for mine. You were a summer, an odyssey, an heirloom, everyone’s all at once. We took our breath in, you grew. We let it out, you grew. Knowing, way-finding, and great. Such expectation, such tempered grace. There was solace. Grief everywhere, grief vanished. We were doused in purple.

My joy is like your strut. Evolved, jilted, my own. Your stage, I wonder, your home or your torment. Which songs did you love, which ones did you loathe? The ridiculous interrogation. If time here is brief, what moves do we make? Wide grin, heel toe, heel toe, waggle of the hips, shake of the finger. Chest puffed. Dad danced. Shiny, glowing, purple.

In truth I might long to have your life, in truth not all of it, only the part I’ve made up. The last bit, seemed, other worldly. The selfishness in that obscene. But you appeared to see, to feel, to write. You danced. An impeccable inner world animated to the best of life by brothers. Kissing on lips, lingering in embraces, knowing when the rest had no clue. You must have felt pain. Common as it is. I think, yes?, you wrote about it. Words deep and pressing, yet always angled up, or was that the role of your kin? You puffed our chests, sparkled us purple.

I would like to believe you are somewhere else now. I would like to believe I could do all that. Belief sits out of grasp. I wish you could grab my cheeks, look in the eye, confer, lead, and attend. The selfishness in that obscene. I was once on your bus. I had no clue, nor did you, nor did they. No one did yet. Now though, crystal water clear. I want to write how you dance. No care but all intention and attention. Turn the dust violet, throw glitter across the page, colour my words purple.

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Muse-ic (2)

I have this vision that I think of often, it evolves. There’s a serene woman, tall, blonde, who is walking through tall green grass. Her feet fall on warm, fresh, soft, earth. It’s morning, the sunlight is soft and glistening. The grass gently moves, there is the faintest but freshest of breezes. The dew is slowing rising. It will be a warm day. Among the tall blades there are sparse wildflowers, insects zagging and the odd petal that has broken loose. A butterfly finds its way in front of her, leads the way then dashes away. She walks toward something, not away. She wears a long, sheer, white, draped cover of sorts. Underneath, I’m not sure. If she lifted her arms they would look like beautifully flowing wings in the hot summer air. But she doesn’t lift her arms as they are each outstretched to something. Her hands hold other hands on either side. Smaller hands. Hands of children. On each side two, maybe three, small beings who walk with her. They smile, they laugh at the creatures, try to catch some of them. One of them hums or sings on and off. Some are hers, others not. Sometimes, behind them, right at her right heel walks a jet black jaguar. He is friend, not foe.

[image: differencecamp.com]

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We did the dance

So you walk with me, who cares

So I run to you, who cares

That moment where we danced

Perhaps, not ours to share

Pick up your bag, softly close the door

Go to the dessert, go, to more

Regret is not an option here

No one knows the ahead

You took the hand, we did the dance

You didn’t spin, you just lead

Was I awake then, or am I now

Can then have happened, or is it now

That moment where we were

Intertwined but far apart

It’s ok, it’s ok, I go there too       

A different will takes me to you

Regret is not an option here

No one knows the ahead

You took the hand, we did the dance

You didn’t spin, you just lead

I’m on the path, you’re there

Of course I care,  I care

That moment, we never had

Surrender, not in the deck

But it does dance, in another place

Breath let out, hands on face

Go there, to the dessert

Will change to the ahead

Breath let out, hands on face

I want to be spun, want to be lead

[Photo by Preillumination SeTh on Unsplash]

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Muse-ic (1)

Here’s what I want you to mull over: what makes you leak?

Now, I wish I could come up with a better word for ‘leak’ but I can’t seem to. So, it will have to serve the purpose today. Eloquent Jenn doesn’t seem to be at the ready for this one. And, so, I ask again, what makes you leak?

I cannot sing the song Fiddler’s Green without crying. I can’t think of that last performance of Grace, Too without eyes tearing. This morning I was having the best run and I spontaneously flung drool from my mouth. Sex, good sex, that’s an obvious one. So, seriously, what makes you leak and how often do you do it? Maybe you do it daily, out of pain and suffering and frustration? Good. That’s real. That’s feeling. Maybe you can’t remember the last time you did it? That’s a problem. Who am I to say that’s a problem, I’m not sure, but you’re the one who’s still reading this despite all my years of meandering. Right?

Pain, joy, ecstasy, lyric, desperation, suffocation, searching, loneliness, vibrancy, knowing – not one is better than the other. Not one can exist without the other. They all have intelligence, they all guide. If you avoid joy only because it could lead to suffering, you aren’t feeling. If you keep trying to push away pain and never let it show you the way to ecstasy, you aren’t feeling. Feeling. Feeling. Feeling. Feel it all.

Feel your body move. Put your feet on the ground, pull your crown to the sky, grow an inch taller, let your body support you, feel its strength, feel its power, feel its universe. Breathe. Move your body in space, listen to your breath. Let someone else touch your body with reverence and if they don’t revere, then find someone who does. If there is no one right now, whatever, touch it yourself. Revere it yourself. Can you? No really, can you?

Listen to your mind, let it race, let it babble, record all of its thoughts whether you understand them or not. If you go to say, write, draw, sing, or feel something and then decide you better not, think again. Think again and think hard about why you choose not to and how is this serving you. Frankly, how is it serving us?

I’m still not quite sure what it is we are doing here but what I do know is that I feel and some of us need to feel more. Daily, encounter something that makes your cells swell and come back alive. Notice it. Repeat it. Harness it.