204

203

To whom does a body belong to?

The person who touched it first?

The person who touched it the longest?

Or the person who touched it last?

250

Tiny hairs kept getting stuck in wet nail polish. Pet hair, cat hair. Or was it pubic? Curly and black. It all looked the same. More likely it was that the bristles of the polish brush were breaking and spilt-ending so that when she went to spread fresh drops of color on her oval shaped bones, the hairs would get stuck. That the bristles were breaking like her own hair would indicate that she had painted her nails for the third time that day. 

Because of indecision. She had switched from wanting the salad to wanting the soup to wanting the Nutella tart at lunch, all within the matter of five minutes and when the waitress finally came, she asked for a few more minutes and when, she had finally decided that something light would be best, she blurted out Quiche to the waitress without really knowing if it was on the menu. It was. 

Because of bordem. Painting nails passed the time, gave her something to focus on. 

Because of the excuse it provided- for example: something like taking out the garbage rendered itself quite impossible and she could simply say to no one in particular "my nails are wet" and not feel guilty or lazy. 

Because smoking. If her hands were busy, she would not smoke. And she was, of course, trying to quit. 

She was painting over Crest* white nails with a shade called

"Vegabondage" which was a color that looked like gummy flesh, the healthy kind you'd find way up top of where your teeth started protruding, if you were to say, spread your top and bottom lips open wide enough with your index and middle fingers. 

When she found the bottle and read the bottom where the name was printed in tiny black lettering, she had envisioned the pink as something sexy. 

But as the pink liquid began to melt into evenly drying strips, it was somehow not. And on her, it even became girly. 

Vegabondage , it occurred to her, was not even an activity. 

But beauty did not have to make any sense. She knew that well enough, and she loved it so. 

She painted her nails. But not her toes - not yet. Though it was November, and though it was warm enough for open-toed shoes (but not exactly opened toe shoes, like sandals) it was more the kind of weather for those ludicrous boots with a peep toe cut out. It was perfect weather for impractical boots with the peep toe. 

But she had not painted them. The weather made just about as much sense as the boots had, and so, wearing socks (very much opposite of any open anything) seemed much more sensible. 

Her toe nails remained bare then. In a non-sexual, Vegabond kind of way. And most certainly without the bondage. 

Besides, she was never patient enough for the first coat to dry before applying the second. 

And as she looked at the freshly painted ten, she wondered if she'd had any acetone left in the bathroom. 

💅🏻

225

I feel like I haven't created anything in a very long time 

And

I've been very concerned with money lately

Like a factory worker

I'm not just a worker bee

I'll write your copy and story lines and headlines for no byline

But money 

Is never what I wanted 

Nor has ever been my motivation 

I've always found my way astonishingly 

Being myself

Star like air like carefree 

Caring that's when things become real

And the problem with real is that my real is not yours

Nor yours mine 

We cannot just be passive observers in a world that has no direction

A moment towards more 

And excess 

Until we are too full fat and happy 

That we are unable to move 

To speak

To think

If this is comfort I say I don't want it

Burn the pillows of defeat

Do not rest your head

But let it fall like a heavy tree

From exhaustion

Because the cut is too deep

Let yourself be uncomfortable

Trimmed down to the bone 

Purge the fullness and tiredness 

I fell asleep in a loud theatre and knew then that

Something must be wrong 

What happened to that slim, shrewd girl

Who would do and try and be anything once 

Had she been all she would be

What was left for her 

When she was on the brink of dying she felt most alive

And now living a life 

She felt the most near death 

201

Almost one year ago to the date exactly,
But in another year and in another life,
She remembered a tiny stream of consciousness
When she was single and not yet a wife,

A place where she wrote down anything
To an audience, loyal and few
Rekindling a need in herself,
She sits and types something new.

TO SEE IF

She still has something left to say,
Or a feeling left to feel,
To know her breath, hair, skin and bones
Are alive, well and real

Not to loose track of things she's thought
So many now, in all these days,
So many voice, places, tastes
But only so many ways
To love.

a woman's work is never done 

200

I thought she was weak when she fell into his arms but when I found arms to fall into, I understood. 

174

Everyone has a sound.

No I don't mean a voice
I mean a sound. 

The sound of a person. You don't hear it right away though, not like an introduction in an exchange of hands and names, but a sound, or sounds rather.
The sounds are almost rhythmic too, like patterns.
Every person has a sound or several sounds and if you can decipher them from each other, you can know just who's walked into the house, who is using the bathroom, who is in the kitchen. 
The pace of her walking, across the hall, sounds different than mine and he,
knows them both, so well. 
The person has a presence also, and if you are very good, you may not even need listen to the sounds of the person to tell who it is that's there without seeing them.
You just feel them.
She felt different than I,
we both, for him, felt the same. 
It was like this, sounds and sounding in silence. Silences' sound a thick and noiseless layer that is the loudest of all except when interrupted by sounds both familiar and un ---
Could you imagine in a city as noisy and congested as this,
you could hear some nights, the rattle of the laundry machine, a near by shower, the sizzling ash of this three quarter smoked cigarette in the rain. 

The rain. I can hear the rain. 
Sometimes what I think I hear is the sound of passionate breath between breathless kisses is really just a leaking air conditioning unit.
No one makes love quietly any more. At least not in the whispered way that tells me we are the only two people who know we are here and we are the only two people who exist.
Us and our sounds. 
I remember waking up one morning and feeling i could lay there all day long. Is this love? I thought. Or is it just too cold and snowy outside to imagine ever leaving this bed, this embrace?
I would know later, yes, it was love indeed. And that I do like winter. Because beds are warmer then. Or at least they feel warmer.
The sound of sheets. Oh! And then the smell....
Three pigeons come in the morning. For what, I do not know, except that they look perfectly placed and framed in that window, a grey and white speckled alley way, much like their own feathers. 
The pigeons always sound like pigeons , their sometimes amusing coos that sound a lot like cat purrrrs. They will always give themselves away.