Imagining you on the beach:
HARK! The herald angels sing. As I belly up over and under my eyes following you, here we go:
Sunglassed and canvassed on the shores of any coast but well, no, not any coast. This is the East coast. But when I was on darker oceans, I thought to myself again and again “well, it would be nice to hold your hand and bring you up and down and up and down”
We could carousel cross the pebbles of Brighton or canals of Dublin and well I found another in Brighton. and she was wonderful. moonlight pushed us to the ground in the rhythm of those waves nipping right behind us. No time to fuck, I had to go to the country and scare the holy horses and ancient guard dogs. (Any guard dog in the country is ancient, the legacy of the position precedes it).
But before the journey to the there, Brighton was the here we could wander and whimper a fair share. We got yelled at by South English Bouncers like we were some 15 year old kids who had not yet been taught the proper ways. (I was playing the sold out show they were guarding us from! I got to have my indie rock star moment before I died) That building across the street burned down and what luck it is that you know the story!
I digress (what fun to be able to!). I want to talk about 'you' (a closer one).
Let me build up the ability to feel that classic awe inspired teen spirit, so I can rub your back with sun block as many times as you'll let me, and kiss each atom of each atom. It's love, baby. Just don't talk about it. I'll look down the shore and see every photo I've ever taken here on a mental slideshow. I used to work in that oddly shaped amphitheater. Right before every show I had to shoo the sweet beach bums off the stage so we could run the final cables of the sound system. During the short break I'd go on a walk, crocheting through the sand, summer sunset glowing like the world's most poetic screensaver. But I am not watching the little kids running around because you are in a bikini and I am a capital A animal. Animal like when you first learn the word. Like an encyclopedia with great pictures. I am not always an opaque oracle and therefore I am not any oracle worth a true gods divination. Chrissy's love is like a river. Mine is with the tides. Your's is probably like a river. Who knows god help me god help me. I just want to love again.
Lay out the towel, make the whole world, make it in my career, make you happy if I can. Make out with you (capital A animal). Deep breaths and I hand you the water bottle and whatever chips you told me to get.
Sometimes it feels like all the elements of the beach are appetizers, sides, and utensils for the jubilant experience of playing music off some roommate's bluetooth JBL speaker.
Reach up through tresses of hair, scritch your scalp, the whole earth relaxes like I finally democratically elected our power to be held in the right hands. I don't know what you have to do to qualify as a “herald angel”, versus a regular angel, if only one is gonna be accompanied by a vocalized “hark!”. I do know for a stupid fact that if anyone asked me the meaning of life, I could motion with my arms in front of me at this moment and it would mean everything I could write. But nevertheless I want to sing to everyone there. I don't. I just hold your hand and keep the earth spinning.
My true love once told me she felt bad that I had to do everything for her, I was about to pick up dinner for the both of us. I told her she could pay me back by rubbing her head into my chest while smiling. So she did. Cat on my chest, breeze through the drapes, childhood now everything it was sold as (a small life worth leading leading to a large life worth leading). And so yeah everything was perfect because we both really meant it. Now that the 'after' has lasted longer than the 'during' which along with the 'before 'is becoming less of held memory and more of a folk song. Well, now that the days rhyme more accurately than they do poetically. Well now that I really do have to figure out a living with my undergrad. Now understood and under my belt let all that is under the sun come back to me and I can heal it. I am a fool but I think that I can heal it. I am a fool but I think that I can heal it. With a song.
When my good friend is in town she makes my life worth living more than I am allowed to say
She tells me: I shouldn't open a door just so it isn't slammed shut.
I ask her if she still likes her mansion?
She tells me: She can only prophecy futures for that old burned out tenement we used to live in.
An oracle for a future that could never exist.
A white picket fence for a neighborhood razed to the ground for a hiway, here to there, A to B, Heart to Heart. Eisenhower is the most romantic of all US Presidents. See how the stream of consciousness brings me to her more or less?
But you are not her. You are half the ritual and I am the beach ball. Or you are the beach and I am the ocean. Its a sin but I am Rippling mostly just for attention.
This is all good fantasy. But it is not reality. In reality I don't keep correspondence, you always say something that makes me feel so alone that I almost cry, we have sex that is so good that I have to turn on emergency generators just to hold back an “I love you” and not only that! Not only that! I am so happy to be rid of you, to send you home, and then I miss you dearly within 2 months and make you lace up, bundle up, just for me to take up more of your precious time and energy. You are the most beautiful woman who has ever loved me. I can rationalize it by saying you already have two girlfriends and it's not like I am making you wait in any real way. Do you believe that the four leaf clover is the unluckiest? They get picked up and kept. They don't, we don't, every One don't choose the talents they are rocking with, god bless our souls. I have moved into many mansions but they never held me like the road could. I look at every little light from every little home on the hiway and I imagine that if I pulled off this exit and drove up to the front door and knocked, they would welcome me like good Christians, they will bathe me, clothe me, feed me, let me stay in their guest room as a member of their family until I finally got the courage to disappear again.
The person who initiates the breakup should always hold the body of the tape measure and the person who is being broken up with should always hold the end of the tape measure. The former should be able to feel proud on how far they can go. The latter should be able to tell themselves that the distance from the beloved rejecter's is closer than the truth. If they have any extra time from thinking so much about themselves they can try and measure some planks for a raising a barn or something. There are no conversations to make anyone feel better. If you get good at holding multiple truths at the same time you already know that the world can't be saved after they don't love you. No one can blame anyone for anything anymore. It makes as much sense as anything. Rhea tells me I should date that fat ass latina who seemed to be allowing me to kiss her. Disappointed by my disinterest in a dismally pragmatic polyamory. Disney girls, fantasy worlds, old cape cod, summer days. A forever wife.
I am jumping off the world of Rockaway beach, I hear sounds of nothing special, turning to heavy cold water, salt in my mouth, the smell of maple syrup running through me, my mother holding me while I cry, friends lost again, children too young to be alone, imaginary friends kept by people too old, Michelle by the Beatles,forced upside down from a wave that was too strong, stealing clothes, singing, rolling around in my arms oh thank god for that memory, thank God for singing and writing, true love! and then the rest of the life I was assigned, hold up the light now!, Nyquil, fear, fear, fear, fear, gone.
Goodnight Irene.