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I started writing this back when I was still going to barefoot coffee more days than not, sitting on curbs with kids who’ll always smoke more cigarettes than I do (roughly two to four a year, bummed from Travis, very sentimentally, only when we’re not living in the same town) beating myself up about a lot of things, a lot of the time. I think I’d just started really trying to play the guitar, and I never finished any songs. But it’s been a few years. The east bay has been absurdly good to me; I’m beset everywhere by foreign talent, foreign strength, wild and beautiful things from people I’m lucky enough to know, and to hold, and to love. It’s hard to ignore what you want in this space, and it’s easy to find people who’ll kick your ass if you try. 

I had to boot my laptop in 32 bit kernel mode to record this, but it’s really just a sketch, a way to spend an evening, something to remember. I finished writing it last week. That’s a couple of years, at least. It’s called Resolution 22. It wouldn’t be called anything, but I have this amazing partner in crime who keeps telling me I have to actually title my songs.

Go with old Impatiens, bursting coiled and green / With your brothers bruised like summer / Pale petals on your cheeks / Go and take your quick words with you / Teach me nothing more // Sweet, your brothers went and brought you a slow, barbed snail / But what’s that happy scent they caught you? / What in god’s name is that smell? / Iron swimming on your shins in old mosquito swells / Teach me nothing else // Your whip, and your whistle / And your history of hot needles / Can I cast them off? / Can I go? // And can I please be brave / And can I treat these comforts like pepper / like all sharper things, as a trade / I’ll raze our house and wave its dust away // Give me just a dripping plum, give me a july bath / and I will drag my tongue down every surface / and each salty back / and I will let you plunder no good ground again // Give me what I had: / my whip / my whistle / my history of hot needles / and I will cast it off / I will go //

Notes

  1. genie-jolie-laide reblogged this from pforu
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  3. smelliott said: Really lovely.
  4. pforu posted this