DATURA

11.10.20
You’re Bilingual.
Because you understand the expansiveness of exquisite variation.

The difference between “There’s a fox at your door.” and “There’s a fox at your door.”

Love happens in so many spaces. You, like myself, occupy the spaces between time, feeling, and the undefined. We remain enthralled by the festival of living, and we occupy each and every space handed to us without reservation. We’ve conjured diligent designs sketched over a lifetime wanting, but knowing they may never live in skin. Wrapped and coiled in colors of cinnabar, lemon, incarnated in scales of dragons, the bark and spined books, shields welded by generations cast aside in the ink stained afterlife of what trees once were. We know this language like the back of our hands, the same that slaps expectation each time we try — and fail– to integrate it in our relationships. Some acts of violence are necessary before another synapse can fire within these labyrinthine brains.

You detect differing accents and letters without need for pursuit, even when you repeatedly discover perfect similitude you know the off white color of the page is, yes off-white but in the failing light appearing almost colored or the memory of a color, somehow red or violet, or close to that, or not at all. We know the weight and implication behind every experience. The same awareness that only comes to most in obvious extremes. Explain this to a friend, and they’ll laugh and tilt their head. Explain the freedom of running in the daylight, and compare it to the fear of running at night, and curious placation becomes understanding empathy.

The cipher clues of this subtle lifestyle are hidden among shared pages, plant tastings, old poetry, new poetry, and music. The type of depth that can turn Sunday into the personification of empathy without endorsement for the rest of the week. That is movement, even in stasis, even when the world looks upon us and sees no shift, we still dance with our idioms, play hide and seek with our art, let creativity be the flow of mischief, of catch and release, of explaining the unexplained. Failure to do this causes…. Monotony. Stagnation. Simplification and Tedium. A whole lot of rot suddenly packed up my nose with the stench of routine.

Quick note here: If this type of whimsy is hard for you to stomach; if you’ve never had a similar experience, then you should come to grips with the fact that you’ve got a TV dinner for a heart and might want to consider climbing inside a microwave and turning it on high for at least an hour, which if you do consider only goes to show what kind of unrealistic expectations for life you have, because microwaves are way too small for anyone, let alone you, to climb into.

Yes, this is a high standard, taller than most my demands — so hear me out here:
While it’s true the simple intake of life as it comes provides satisfaction for the average person; I exists in different lives simultaneously and thanks to years of living with myself, I’ve come to understand this more and more as a gift rather than the pathology most simple-folk indite. Private nomenclature develops in tight, set-upon circles, right? So, is it too far-fetched for individuals to develop their own? I sure have. And that has value, to hell if I’ll settle for ignoring what’s written between the lines, it’s those spaces (and what we do with them) that fuel so much of the energy behind my love. Hell, who I am. What kind connection sustains itself on half-knowing?

So yes, you’re bilingual, trilingual, multilingua;, you’ll teach me new ways of speaking without talking. I’ll share my books, my herbs, these ramblings of mine. You’ll learn of past MUSES, MIRRORs, and SNAK.S.SKIN, we’ll play tag with the day’s song. You’ll show me yours, I’ll show you mine. We’ll meet in the place no one else goes.

DATURA

10.12.20
You must have good posture.

I mean it. Stand up. Stand up straight. Let your shoulder-blades hug your spine, your tailbone tuck beneath your hips. May your chin parallel the floor, and your eyes look ahead. Walk with practiced steps. The type of prowl that carries purpose in ambition trailheads and indecision sidewalks.

Let me explain; so far I’ve talked up my downfalls. I am, only human after all. Don’t mistake grace for weakness. tenderness for powerlessness. This ethereal compassion of mine is the pockets of matter making up my skeleton. Air matter that can re-shape mountains, tour guide tornadoes, and breeze-pluck an eyelash from your fingertip. This life force in my veins is more water than blood. I can quench the thirst of the loveless and lost, hydrate hope back into eyes of the forlorn. Show them tears are equal parts earthquake and revolution.

So if you must know one thing about me, Datura:
I will not be contained.

_{“Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
 And stand together yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”
-Kahlil Gibran}

9.6.20

DATURA
You’re an expert navigator. Robin Hood’s moral compass was engraved in your pigeon magnetic poles when you were born.

I get lost easy. Really. I only know one way home – and even then my tendencies lead me astray. This combined with a surplus of curiosity makes me a sailor’s worst nightmare. Even if we are all made of star-stuff.

Of course curiosity kills the fox. And even if satisfaction supposedly brought it back to life, there’s still those times I deep dive into my mess-person. As I’ve discovered, there are reams and reams of it. Endless snarls of words, sometimes twisting into meaning, sometimes into nothing at all, frequently breaking apart, always branching off into other pieces I come across later–on old napkins, the tattered edges of an envelope, once even on the thought of saffron; everything and anything but empty; each fragment completely covered with the creep of years and years of ink pronouncements; layered, crossed out, amended; handwritten, typed; legible, illegible; impenetrable, lucid; torn, stained, scotch taped; some bits crisp and clean, others faded, burnt or folded and refolded so many times the creases have obliterated whole passages of god knows what–sense? truth? deceit? a legacy of prophecy or lunacy or nothing of the kind?, and in the end achieving, designating, describing, recreating– find your own words; I have no more; or plenty more but why? and all to tell–what?
See what I mean? Lost in the meaning of so many dangerous sentences.

Of course I only have my own immeasurable stupidity for winding up here. I was a fool to disregard the person-map. Or is it the reverse? Do I secretly enjoy these alter-spaces? At least we can both agree I should have some fucking inkling of what I’m doing here.

And I do. At least sometimes I do. I’m fickle. My head and my heart change gears as often as most people change underwear, and of course you know… None of this is out of malintent; but what’s real and what’s not real doesn’t matter here. The consequences are the same. The mirror still bears the beast’ fangs at me. That promiscuous behavior marking my teen years never went away, it only became more discrete. That may be the worst decision I ever made, but fuck it, it’s mine.

Datura, here is how I lost my lovers; I was, and sometimes still am, a cold shower. As you well know, finding out there’s no warm water is a particularly unpleasant discovery, simply because it’s not something you figure out immediately. You have to let the water run awhile and even though it rains icy, part of you still refuses to believe it won’t change, especially if you wait a little longer or open up the valve a little more. So you wait, but no matter how many minutes run by, you still see no steam, you still feel no heat.

I’ve warmed in my years. Grown more transparent, but you can imagine the re-imaging necessary to pull a person so far out their gravity scope. These pushes and pulls frighten me. I confuse arms for cages. Comfort for placation. Wounds for daggers. That incertitude made a habit of running away from tenderness. from you. In those moments, I need your compass, your direction, your questions: “where are you?”, “what does it look like?”, the things that give structure to these thought buildings and feeling streets. I will get lost again Datura, when I do, I’ll need you. That map of yours saying “you are here, and so am I.”

DATURA

9.24.20
You will be ambidextrous.

After taking one on the chin, your submissive hand will let her forehead be kissed by the dominant palm.

That type of Ying-Yang union, the unnameable subtleness in pressure change when Air plays Venae Cavae to Fire’s bloodlines. Phileas Fogg recognized the arterial trunk in these two secrete lovers; even went as far as ballooning his legacy on the skyways of their alliance.

Same way you fit in your body. Your bones, patient bones, hold your body content. Ever the reliable tranquility which (unless cremated) will lay still in their resting place long after your soul has left. This rock, soil, Earth, mineral, bone of you will syndicate with the Water of your skin. That Water that can never stay still. It plays butterfly to your muscles, always rushing somewhere else; restless, talkative and curious. It still wants to meet my own skin even when it begins to show scarred attempts to elope with gravity, or time. Sometimes gravity and time.

I need you like this. See, some frog diced my central nervous system like an onion some time ago. Rattlesnake tongues finished their tango on the floor of my eyes. To this day, my brain cries after failing to pilot its own ship. It’s still surprised when it finds itself docked at inappropriate ports. Call it the curse of the Water-Bearer to carry the blessing (or curse) of imagination, and to be exposed without preparation to a life outside its own containment.

So when I mistake a warning for friendly advice, when I picket fence non-conformity, when my left brain growls Cerberus at my right; sooth me tender, pst pst pst me back to the porch of your acceptance, leave the string-lights on at night for me. The ones with the “I see you,” and “you’re safe here,” light-bulbs. Lend me your eyes as mirrors, those eyes that recognize my prowl is more run away, than pounce. They know the bearing of teeth is really just a lost smile trying to find its way back home.

_{“All creatures must learn that there exist predators. Without this knowing, a woman will be unable to negotiate safely within her own forest without being devoured. To understand the predator is to become a mature animal who is not vulnerable out of naivete, inexperience, or foolishness.”
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype}

Datura

9.9.20
I
Datura must be a sommelier. They must assimilate with, and seek smell. The wine is entirely optional in this theoretic.
Why is smell so important? Because smell is the prodigal son of breath, and without breath you’ll find yourself in a bit of a bind there.

Smell can cook a meal (more on this later.) A good sense of smell is the highway between the head and the heart. You can taste the difference between the pesto who made love to the pine nut, and the one who fucked your plastic tupperware.

A passion… no, not even a passion. an awareness of smell indicates passion for invisible enthusiasms. Not the obvious ones, the hidden ones, the ones that define a moment without ever giving it a name.

In the mornings, my armpits smell of desert heat and jungle floor – in fact, all day I exude different varietals of Musk. My rebellious resistance to “Lavender Vanilla – All Day Protection!” reminds me that your essence, whatever that may be, is never something to be protected against. On days when we loose our senses, go blind to one another, let go of each others hand – let the smell of my shirt remind you of warmth and the joy of swinging on jungle vines.

People have alienated scent the way we’ve alienated nature. It is somehow other, outside of us. We treat it like something to use and mold, we ignore its world map and draw boundary lines across its olfactory relevance. Datura, you’ll know the smell of moist, the smell of sweat. You’ll think back on Italy’s olives and say “let’s dance in the rain.”

DATURA

9.9.20
My therapist likes to throw shade.
She has a way with words, that woman. She’ll say things like “untapped subservience,” and “pathologically secretive.”

that last one stung a bit.

During our most recent exercise, she’s asked me to write down a list of traits I seek in partners.

I tell her how stupid that is. No one can know what they want in a partner if they haven’t met them yet.

“It’s like painting O’Keeffe’s Jimson Weed and asking her to jump rope with the Stary Night.” Is what I tell her. She doesn’t respond, either not picking up the reference or simply deciding to ignore it. She knows not to play tug-o-war with my foolishness. Instead I start writing things down like “compassionate, honest, independent, creative.” A list of ten demands seeming more commandments – the standard bullshit you find on every over 40s match.com profile.

There are things I want to write down, but don’t say (probably not doing much to contradict my tight-lipped pathology diagnosis). The substance of a person you can’t dial for in yellow pages. What separates mannequin from nectarine.

I’m still not sure if this exercise will be good for me, but like any good lamb to slaughter, I’ll baa.