the way it spins
The last two weeks have been some of the most crazy-lovely times of the last year. When I try to pull a feather down from a bird and make a quill and words from it, I have a hard time. Motion demands I dance instead of sit and find words. My chaos makes me want to go blurry instead of still. Yet, at the right moments, I am utterly motionless, tucking toes beneath me and twisting my body into Lotus to smile Cleopatra-like on the world. I’ve been wilder and more fearless than I’ve been in a long time, and yet, I am soft and kitteny, supple and bending when I want to be. Want is the operative word.
Friday was the happiest I’ve been in ages. Driving to Flagstaff, knowing logan was somewhere in the streets named for animals and pine tree poets, I twitched with joy. My foot thumped a jackrabbit-pulse on the gas. I sang out the window, letting Flagstaff know I was on my way. My heart leapt in my chest, coyote-quick, when I thought that the miles would soon be inches and my friend, who I hadn’t seen in a good eight months, would be next to me. When I ran into his sister's house, I threw myself into his arms, nuzzled my head against him, and said his name over-and-over-and-over, like a hymn, like a word that a toddler is just learning and adores: “Loganloganlogan! My best friend!" And then, "Loganloganlogan!" all over again.
He returned the embrace, touching the small of my back, contact of skin-to-skin, his warm and mine cold from being outside. I couldn’t get close enough to him. My lungs expanded with air, laughter, and logan. My heart wanted to hurt that he’d not be in Arizona for long, but all I could think was that I was glad we had the now, and that I’d see him in October in Mexico and sooner than that, all over the Country. Sometimes, you love someone enough to let him or her be free and travel because you know that it’s something they must do. My friends understand this of me, too, for I constantly roam. Besides, how can I deny the world logan? He is so good. He really and truly is. I have not ever said that about someone else the way I have said this about logan.
His cute little family was there, which was a surprise. I fucking love the Phillips family and think of them as mine, too. His mother, Judy, gave me a gigantic hug. “She was happier to see you than she was me, Jewelynx Skinnypants,” logan whispered, grinning. I helped him pick out his clothes for the night, which made me grin after all that times I've asked, "Does this make me look stupid?" His sister, Alison, showed Melinda and I her artwork, and his parents divvied up shots and stories for the telling before we went downtown for the show at the Orpheum Theatre. logan’s parents took us to a Victorian hotel for cocktails. Effectively, the Phillips family got us drunk. "Does that make me a bad mom?" Judy kept asking, and it was adorable because she's a kick-ass mom. When he was across the room, she confided what it'd been like to be his mother and said, "He came out a deep soul with those eyes. He was born that way."
Chilled martinis and dim lighting, wallpaper that’s seen ghosts and my friend Lynn unexpectedly walking into the room. “Your face has changed so much,” he told me with a soft smile, and for the rest of the night, I kept running up to rub Lynn’s head and give him kisses on his forehead. I need to see him more. The entire night was a series of running into people I hadn’t seen in ages: Christopher, Lynn, John and Meghan, Justin, and so many more. Even if I didn’t talk long to some folks, I was so glad that everyone was there in the same room. That was enough.
“I am so glad this is the posse I am rolling up here with,” logan said, leaning into me, so that I could loop my arm through his and run to our destination. I spent a lot of my evening with my arm through logan’s. People heard us before they saw us. We were dressed in hurricane-sounds and the kind of laughter that can shatter windows after the storm is over. On the sidewalk before they let us in, I danced and leapt, shoved shoulders and bit the ones I liked the best. I couldn’t stop moving. A lady in the line got surly with us, but we didn’t care. Melinda flirted with the men at the door, something I’ve never seen her do, and damn, she was good at it and we were in fast. We flashed our teeth. We wanted words dispensed to us like Communion wafers or a sentence come undone the right way.
By the time logan blazed his way onstage, my motion had turned into an exquisite disaster. I screamed at him as much as possible, nearly losing my voice in the process. Every time I have performed with logan in the audience, he's done the same for me. Perhaps this makes me an annoying audience member, but he is my best friend. I'll shout and make a scene for anyone that's my friend. “Te amo, El Lobo Loco,” I yelled out, causing logan to crack a huge smile. I’d wondered before if he could see Melinda and I sitting with his parents front and center a little way back, but now I knew. logan knew exactly where we were. I wanted him to know. I wanted him to feel how much we loved him. It’s not often that a person has a friend like that, someone who blows her mind and makes life a beautiful experience. I don’t call many people my friend, although many people use that word for me. logan is my friend. Later, when I read his new books and saw the thank-yous and recognised my name, I felt honoured. I felt even more honoured when I saw pieces of letters we’d once written turned into poems. He is in my writing, too. My writing will never be the same now that I have a logan in my world. I couldn’t stop peeking at his books, all night and the next morning.
One of the strange parts of the evening was that guys kept approaching Melinda and I, trying to flirt. When I am with my friends, I become almost snarly at people approaching to flirt. Plus, I think that my flirting button is broken, and I just don’t understand why someone would flirt with me. I think that they’ll see all my awkwardness and fierce-smile antics and get scared and see me for the charlatan that I can be. Cute Greek Scholar Christopher, whom I’ve corresponded with and admired for his brilliant mind, came up to me and I went shy, hiding my teeth and eyes behind Melinda’s shoulder and hair. A man hit on me by admiring my hand-knitted fingerless gloves; another said my mouth was meant for dangerous things; a third tried to tell me he liked my height. They were all attractive, yet I kept moving and holding onto logan. I kept drinking and finding liquid oblivion. I kept murmuring half-poems into the ears of those who would hear. I told a boy, “I so want to make out with you” and later, grabbed him in the middle of a street and proceeded to do just that.
I didn’t get to sleep until almost five in the morning, and woke up early-early, tangled and bare. Instead of getting rest, I ended up repeating my cycle of staying up all night talking to someone and waking up early enough to talk some more. Even the sky was shy because of how much we smiled and revealed. My secrets slipped through my fingers like water, and there were more to tell, yet I wasn’t worried about the ones that I’d told. It's pretty magical to drink wine, dance, sing to someone, be sung to, eat Trader Joe's goodies, and go to sleep laughing, only to wake up and do it again for almost twenty-four hours and not once be sick of your company or wonder how you can escape. I think that I am playing with fire, and I don’t know what I am doing, but I think that I like the uncertainty of it all. When I say that I don’t know what I want, I am lying. I know exactly what I want, and although I’d like to deny it, I know that I do. Sometimes, I want to be the worst disaster that this person has ever known. Other times, I know that’s exactly what I am becoming. There's much more to write, but time will let that happen.
My voice is still sandpaper and parchment paper, turpentine and bathtub gin. It's a reminder of all I've told. I don't regret a second of it.
Jewelslinks
P.S. I want to rant about one of the performers, but I don’t even know where to start. Let’s just suffice it to say that I was pissed at how little he delivered after all the fanfare. The others blew my mind. I cried. I don’t mind crying if it’s from good shit, you know?
Friday was the happiest I’ve been in ages. Driving to Flagstaff, knowing logan was somewhere in the streets named for animals and pine tree poets, I twitched with joy. My foot thumped a jackrabbit-pulse on the gas. I sang out the window, letting Flagstaff know I was on my way. My heart leapt in my chest, coyote-quick, when I thought that the miles would soon be inches and my friend, who I hadn’t seen in a good eight months, would be next to me. When I ran into his sister's house, I threw myself into his arms, nuzzled my head against him, and said his name over-and-over-and-over, like a hymn, like a word that a toddler is just learning and adores: “Loganloganlogan! My best friend!" And then, "Loganloganlogan!" all over again.
He returned the embrace, touching the small of my back, contact of skin-to-skin, his warm and mine cold from being outside. I couldn’t get close enough to him. My lungs expanded with air, laughter, and logan. My heart wanted to hurt that he’d not be in Arizona for long, but all I could think was that I was glad we had the now, and that I’d see him in October in Mexico and sooner than that, all over the Country. Sometimes, you love someone enough to let him or her be free and travel because you know that it’s something they must do. My friends understand this of me, too, for I constantly roam. Besides, how can I deny the world logan? He is so good. He really and truly is. I have not ever said that about someone else the way I have said this about logan.
His cute little family was there, which was a surprise. I fucking love the Phillips family and think of them as mine, too. His mother, Judy, gave me a gigantic hug. “She was happier to see you than she was me, Jewelynx Skinnypants,” logan whispered, grinning. I helped him pick out his clothes for the night, which made me grin after all that times I've asked, "Does this make me look stupid?" His sister, Alison, showed Melinda and I her artwork, and his parents divvied up shots and stories for the telling before we went downtown for the show at the Orpheum Theatre. logan’s parents took us to a Victorian hotel for cocktails. Effectively, the Phillips family got us drunk. "Does that make me a bad mom?" Judy kept asking, and it was adorable because she's a kick-ass mom. When he was across the room, she confided what it'd been like to be his mother and said, "He came out a deep soul with those eyes. He was born that way."
Chilled martinis and dim lighting, wallpaper that’s seen ghosts and my friend Lynn unexpectedly walking into the room. “Your face has changed so much,” he told me with a soft smile, and for the rest of the night, I kept running up to rub Lynn’s head and give him kisses on his forehead. I need to see him more. The entire night was a series of running into people I hadn’t seen in ages: Christopher, Lynn, John and Meghan, Justin, and so many more. Even if I didn’t talk long to some folks, I was so glad that everyone was there in the same room. That was enough.
“I am so glad this is the posse I am rolling up here with,” logan said, leaning into me, so that I could loop my arm through his and run to our destination. I spent a lot of my evening with my arm through logan’s. People heard us before they saw us. We were dressed in hurricane-sounds and the kind of laughter that can shatter windows after the storm is over. On the sidewalk before they let us in, I danced and leapt, shoved shoulders and bit the ones I liked the best. I couldn’t stop moving. A lady in the line got surly with us, but we didn’t care. Melinda flirted with the men at the door, something I’ve never seen her do, and damn, she was good at it and we were in fast. We flashed our teeth. We wanted words dispensed to us like Communion wafers or a sentence come undone the right way.
By the time logan blazed his way onstage, my motion had turned into an exquisite disaster. I screamed at him as much as possible, nearly losing my voice in the process. Every time I have performed with logan in the audience, he's done the same for me. Perhaps this makes me an annoying audience member, but he is my best friend. I'll shout and make a scene for anyone that's my friend. “Te amo, El Lobo Loco,” I yelled out, causing logan to crack a huge smile. I’d wondered before if he could see Melinda and I sitting with his parents front and center a little way back, but now I knew. logan knew exactly where we were. I wanted him to know. I wanted him to feel how much we loved him. It’s not often that a person has a friend like that, someone who blows her mind and makes life a beautiful experience. I don’t call many people my friend, although many people use that word for me. logan is my friend. Later, when I read his new books and saw the thank-yous and recognised my name, I felt honoured. I felt even more honoured when I saw pieces of letters we’d once written turned into poems. He is in my writing, too. My writing will never be the same now that I have a logan in my world. I couldn’t stop peeking at his books, all night and the next morning.
One of the strange parts of the evening was that guys kept approaching Melinda and I, trying to flirt. When I am with my friends, I become almost snarly at people approaching to flirt. Plus, I think that my flirting button is broken, and I just don’t understand why someone would flirt with me. I think that they’ll see all my awkwardness and fierce-smile antics and get scared and see me for the charlatan that I can be. Cute Greek Scholar Christopher, whom I’ve corresponded with and admired for his brilliant mind, came up to me and I went shy, hiding my teeth and eyes behind Melinda’s shoulder and hair. A man hit on me by admiring my hand-knitted fingerless gloves; another said my mouth was meant for dangerous things; a third tried to tell me he liked my height. They were all attractive, yet I kept moving and holding onto logan. I kept drinking and finding liquid oblivion. I kept murmuring half-poems into the ears of those who would hear. I told a boy, “I so want to make out with you” and later, grabbed him in the middle of a street and proceeded to do just that.
I didn’t get to sleep until almost five in the morning, and woke up early-early, tangled and bare. Instead of getting rest, I ended up repeating my cycle of staying up all night talking to someone and waking up early enough to talk some more. Even the sky was shy because of how much we smiled and revealed. My secrets slipped through my fingers like water, and there were more to tell, yet I wasn’t worried about the ones that I’d told. It's pretty magical to drink wine, dance, sing to someone, be sung to, eat Trader Joe's goodies, and go to sleep laughing, only to wake up and do it again for almost twenty-four hours and not once be sick of your company or wonder how you can escape. I think that I am playing with fire, and I don’t know what I am doing, but I think that I like the uncertainty of it all. When I say that I don’t know what I want, I am lying. I know exactly what I want, and although I’d like to deny it, I know that I do. Sometimes, I want to be the worst disaster that this person has ever known. Other times, I know that’s exactly what I am becoming. There's much more to write, but time will let that happen.
My voice is still sandpaper and parchment paper, turpentine and bathtub gin. It's a reminder of all I've told. I don't regret a second of it.
Jewelslinks
P.S. I want to rant about one of the performers, but I don’t even know where to start. Let’s just suffice it to say that I was pissed at how little he delivered after all the fanfare. The others blew my mind. I cried. I don’t mind crying if it’s from good shit, you know?