(pure gushing)
I was thinking about what made you so special. Now I don’t want these words to be pure sugar, as that nauseates every tongue. But I was thinking about why for example the sun parts in rays just for you. And what power you hold over the weather, and always so dramatic every time you arrive it’s either lightning and soaked skin or cherryblossom breezes drying dewdrops off toenails; you don’t get caught in in-betweens. Something fascinating about extremes, not that we get so bored with moderation, maturity, mediums or every other kind of M (the exact middle of the alphabet). That weather, or the tone in your voice - it’s the way you exhaustively answer the most mundane question, as though no one else in history has ever asked it. You turn the razor attention of that mind on my eyelash, and my stomach turns in knots. If a poem could be written about swatting a fly with a Buick, well … oh there I go again about extremes. But I’m avoiding my initial problem, that of your peculiar quality. Is it your teeth – such fine teeth. Why is there so much emphasis on this planet about beautiful teeth? I’d rather have a cast-iron femur, guaranteed never to snap (something about certain death from massive internal bleeding). I’d rather have skin like a rhinoceros. I can eat meals through a straw if I have to, I don’t need shiny teeth, pearly whites, gate to your mouth your weapon of expression, your voice constant and reassuring like waves lapping against my cottage dock in mid July.
But no, it was never anything physical. And that too is cliché. I can’t call you special if I describe it in clichés. No, I need different phrases, like big pointy purple things, large orang-utan bands playing the banjos and hell maybe a fruit smoothie so damn smooth it’s like someone kicked me in the nuts with a half-litre of banana-pureed nutritional delirium – those kind of images could possibly be a start; though it’s ridiculous I can find therein the sublime, the underlying
ne plus ultra of your speciality. I can’t resort to nature, the weather, physical footnotes or any other kind of archaeological cluebook the romantics fall back on. Give me my orangutan band and a ticket out of the solar system – there’re comets passing through every 86 years that don’t get worn out by this planet’s hackneyed explanations. Just passing through bearing gifts from Proxima Centauri, so much travelling you’ve done, just want to learn from your latest adventure.
Sometimes I wonder if you actually exist. Remember that game we played as kids – when we turned our back to the room and wondered if it was still there behind us? These were epiphanies – entire philosophies - disguised as hide-and-seek. I get that feeling when you’re gone from my life; not quite sure it was just a trick, not sure whether what I believed left any indelible meaning. And maybe I should apologize for my lack of faith – but if I could count on miracles they’d stop being miracles, and it’s pretty predictable where you’ll find me: in death valley. Then you come back and the universe has wheels again, clocks resume ticking, the entire dictionary reads like a single shop-sign declaring ‘open for business’. Church bells repeat your name and I spend all morning going gaga, spilling ink for cappuccino froth with cinnamon and a saucy wink from somebody’s long-legged sister - and that’s as close to heaven as I need. Did I mention the wink from that waitress? Thank you thank you–she’s smokin hot but also witty, warm, and she actually knows how to read.
I can sketch a series of images, I still won’t capture it: I gotta slice you up, section by section, trap you on a microscope slide (the goal of science is to use genius to eliminate all possibility for imagination, and oh the sad ingenuity that requires, the dedication to explanatory blandness; I don’t have it). I’m afraid I don’t want to reach my intended destination. Much too much of a digression, I’m completely guilty of procrastination.
So -
What makes you special – you turn each of us into a complete fool.
Plus – there’s that delicate flip of your rose-scented wrist, casting light in a tunnel and glowing in my iris. Pointing the way with a chuckle, halfway between a slap and a kiss.
What makes you special is your cast and crew, this insane retinue, and I’ve gone black and blue cataloguing everything they do. Sometimes they blindside me, other times I am grateful to borrow their eyes, step outside my shell and float. Out of body experience? Fuck no – I’m clearly out of my mind, and what I mean is that I get to be in someone else’s. An honour and a privilege.
What makes you special is that 883 days ago I dedicated everything up here to you – and somehow you keep pulling me – I’m pulling it - through. I don’t just feel like I’m showing off, because I know I’m really humble and besides – it was you who asked me to.
Pelican man, I [heart] you.
