Rain Debt
actually I didn’t appreciate the look of disgust I got at the hot yoga class from the guy with abs sitting next to me, because, yes, I know what I look like, I’ve been depressed my whole life. I spent the hour thinking about those photos of Lena Dunham on a run and whether I could afford a long-line sports bra. I can because I don’t pay rent at my boyfriend’s house. I pay off my credit card in full and think of the aisha sasha john line, “that’s right TD Visa.”
I ordered a bunch of perfume samples and all the descriptions are very detailed narratives about how the smell will make you feel. like a short story that is all setting, no plot. I read an interview with the perfumer where they describe the scents as “transcendental,” then they ad-lib imagery for each perfume and decide that “innocence is horny.” so the perfume induces a virgin fantasy?
I googled a woman whose husband I know. the reviews of her books were almost the same as the descriptions of the perfume—extremely sensual and specific. “The best stories are like translations of sensuality, as if sand or butter or seawater spoke a language not quite like ours.” also: “Whether they’re stepping into a warm bath recently abandoned by an elusive, imaginary lover, or stepping onto the pure whiteness of an isolated Mexican beach, the women in [this] fictional garden carry themselves forward in a glistening exquisite dance.”
in one of the stories a girl sprays perfume on the back of her knees to “leave a trail of scent.” when Sophia tried a fig leaf perfume I was wearing last winter, she said “it smells like my mom’s ancient Chanel,” which reminded me that, throughout my childhood, my dad saved up his drug store points all year to buy my mom No. 5. the relationship I have with my boyfriend is not Oedipal because the only points he can redeem are payed out in canadian tire money.
the smoke is gone after a long day of rain. my car was covered in ash and I couldn’t see the trees. I planted spinach in the garden then closed my eyes on the couch for several hours—what I can only imagine was my body shutting down to process the toxins. I felt helpless. W reminded me that there is nothing more important than planting a fall crop during a summer fire. We read the Richard Brautigan story with black soundless watermelon because the days were colourless and felt outside of time.
you brush where the words don’t work / you make the surface spiritual / knots of fisherman’s rope and forest / the surface is horse mane, linseed, baleen / you read moby dick and talk to me about the colour white for several hundred pages / I know about whales / I lived by the ocean where they sleep / got in the water and scraped my foot on barnacle / drank mottled blood / sewed up the mouth and heated the oil / after eight beers I forget where we are in the story / take you home and breathe on you until we pass out / paint because blindness of the mouth / pluck animal hair because the words don’t work
in a memory palace a plinth is like a hand / count on fingers to find where we are / in this architecture there is a memory of your painting / plunge through the surface to remember you / too many times I look away and forget
you do me and I like it / no shame in the wordless feeling / you paint and I watch / the wordlessness settles in me like a mouthful of sand / I swallow from the bottom of the ocean / and the sand that comes out of you / and the sand stuck on my skin
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