photography – Page 8

a crow carrying pearls

365:2011.01.30 - Once upon a time there was a girl who composed love letters inside her head as she was falling asleep

“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances; if there is any reaction, both are transformed.” -Carl Jung

Once upon a time there was a girl who composed love letters inside her head as she was falling asleep, words in white against the darkness in her lids. She would lie and listen to his breathing, wondering what would be important later, wondering at the odds. In her hands, his, fingers laced, his death-grip a silent promise. She would kiss him goodnight, the angles of his body in the dark the same shape as the word home, while in the center of her body a garden of tightly wrapped desert flowers began to find purchase, patiently waiting for the right conditions to finally flourish into bloom.

-::-
I’ve been enjoying being more social lately. Jay came over earlier this week, as well as Joshua, Nadia, and Brian, and though I haven’t been spending as much time with Arron as I would like, we’ve been speaking every day, which is it’s own sort of treat, as it makes me warm to hear how I make him smile. It’s good to be rebuilding, seeing people who shake me out of habit, remind me that there is more to the world than looking for work.

Today I’m living off oranges, peeling them with chipped silver fingernails, satisfied to be curled up in bed with my laptop with no plans at all except for job hunting and a driving lesson later, though tomorrow I will venture outside. I will dress up my smile, put feathers in my hair, and walk over to The Prophouse Cafe, the highly eccentric coffee shop on Venebles across from Uprising Breads, and settle in for Shadow On The Land, a beautiful evening of music and enchantment, the listening party for Jess Hill‘s darling new album-to-be, Orchard. Mind of a Snail will be performing, too, with everything kicking off at 8 pm.

I

WIRED is using one of my photos for an article on oxytocin, called ‘Love Hormone’ Arouses Suspicion, Too. I wish they had asked first, but even so, I can’t think of anything more apt.

as through this, we transform

Today is the anniversary of the day I was hit by a truck seven years ago. It threw me thirty feet, peeling the skin from my knees like red fruit, shifting my bones, and tearing my silk skirt and shoulder like they were made from the same tissue. My hips were no longer a cradle, but a crooked cup, dropped and badly repaired. My right arm wouldn’t follow commands.

-::-
Your heart, it tastes like something I used to remember. Words restarted, strange memories, reverb, a breath of fresh air, and shift. (Standing in a room torn down years ago, shouting at a man who will no longer talk to me, never see, don’t mention, “I never said it would be easy to be with me.” If I could have seen the future, I would have walked out then, every step away a commitment to a better tomorrow.) We sit in your vehicle outside my building, the third night in a row, dark, midnight warm, a scene from a movie we’re writing with all the verve of a massacre, interpreting the strings, showing our scissors, oxytocin gleam, sharpening knives, as close as the moment at New Year’s Eve when we kissed under confetti and flashing lights. A change, the weather, our sea, research material, a history beginning to mingle, to be.

Between my arms, pride, peroxide corrosive, sincere and loaded as a gun. Lying on the couch, discussing humanities, a button floats to the top, ready to be pushed. He stiffens, ambiguity banished, a familiar motif, easier for me to get to than him for me, a center of Rowan tree, witch tree, anger, dense and thick with power, almost spitting his words as, counter-intuitive, I relax, comfortable with the coda, the moment, hatred matched with an alpha sympathy. We both have this. It is a gift, as well as a curse. Us as graphic motif, living, crackling towers of fury, hands raised, ground shaking, pulling down a storm. He apologised, though it was unnecessary, an instinct ground deep, appreciated as part of a medley, a comfort carved from context, clever and adored. Though you make me afraid, I wanted to say, it does not stem from this, but how much I want to live in your heart.