I am trying/ to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,/ walking you through a real shithole, chirps on/ about good bones: This place could be beautiful,/ right? You could make this place beautiful.
Good Bones by Maggie Smith
I want to touch again, this life I once loved.
I am kneeling at the edges of my 27th birthday and I cannot remember the last time I loved life—really loved it. I have not been myself, have been convinced of my own insanity for the past 6 months, and am sure that my world was just a few minutes from falling apart. Perhaps though it still is.
I don’t know when it began, this recoil. Life seems to have burned me when I wasn’t looking. I keep flinching away from the grip, turning my back to any intensity. I began, some time ago, living with a buffer. I’d noticed, as I looked back on a few days, small manifestations of a thin but endless sadness. Like tears filling the eyes that for whatever reason will not fall from the waterline. And I didn’t want it to be true, I clung to a manner of things to try and prove it wasn’t there, like those old stories where to give something name is to confirm it exists. I could not bring myself to name it. I had the sense to do so would shatter the careful reality I’d anticipated. My life, I thought, at this time, is usually very good. I cannot let it not be good. I was counting on it, counting on this year being different because we are always counting on the next thing being different. If I was sad the way I was always sad then I didn’t want to consider what that meant for everything else. So I encased myself in glass. I watched the sadness from a safer distance. Like an animal at the zoo or a window of a home I didn’t live in. I would not let it touch me.
And I waited—waited for it to pass. But since then nothing has touched me, not even happiness really. You see when you encase yourself in glass you’re still encased in glass. When you decide to live without you do not get a choice of what doesn’t show up. All of it vanishes. Nothing really happens. You forget to feel.
So I am leaning into all things.
Especially now, at this season. Spring is almost here and it is doing that thing that it does to me before it arrives, planting its seeds for lack of a better term. Showing up in the middle of a winter day as a streak of sunlight or a glimpse of green. Which is beautiful because it feels rare, it feels actually better than if it were spring at all because you hadn’t expected to be touched by something gentle and so early. I admit if such a thing has happened this year I haven’t noticed. So what I want, really, is for winter to stay a little longer. Not harsh but the kind of lingering that happens in two hands who have yet to let go when they should’ve. I know what that means. I know I must allow the sadness to fill my eyes, I guess I’m waiting to be brave or forgetful.
This is the lesson I will spend my whole life learning. I must say its name. I wish it didn’t exist, but it does. If I should defend life and devote so much then I cannot deny any of it. It is an act of love, a profound act of love, to confirm what exists.
And you know, spring is like fresh laundry, so I must prepare to press my face into its warm soft fabric.
What I know is that I know how. I know how to love life, how to hold onto it, how to let it hold onto me. I remember buying good fruit, how to clean my counters, tuck in my shirt, change my sheets and I remember how to let my sadness pass through me. A mourning dove has begun to sing outside our window and I remember how it feels to let that stand for the hope that winter will end and the good season will come with all its tiny worships. I remember how to hold two contradicting ideas, that I’m not good but that this is good, and to let those separate channels blend together to diminish and exalt each other. Because really my sorrow has always been a tool of recontextualizing life, to take it into my palms and to look at it with clear eyes, while goodness sits on the peripheral. And when it comes I still remember. When it comes it’s sweeter, happiness touches deeper when sorrow carves you out. Is it good? I don’t know if that's the point, but perhaps we can say simply it happened.
And it is better for life to happen than to watch it from the wing. It is better to be there than to be behind the glass. I remember what it means to be glad that this is true.
The more I talk the easier it feels, the braver I feel. I think I thought I was going crazy because I hadn’t touched anything in so long. I have this dream afternoon, if March is warm or maybe early April. The kind of warm that you press yourself flat against the ground or find a patch of sunlight and use it as a blanket. By comparison, maybe it’s not warm at all, just warmer than you remember it ever being allowed. I want there to be a day like that, the kind they always write about. I want to have a little cash so I can buy a fruit from whichever stand or market I pass without worrying over a minimum. I’d like it to be watermelon because I eat it with my father on our porch often, but it isn’t the season so any fruit will do. To then peel meticulously the skin or sink my teeth in with a hunger for certain joy that I have muted this long to survive. In the dream, the juice slips between my fingers down my palm, and to my forearm because in my dream I always pick the best and good one. It leaves the sleeve of my shirt a little sticky so I can’t even put it back in the drawer once I go to bed.
But that’s okay. It’s laundry day. I’m breaking the glass. I’m going inside the home that I’ve been looking into. It’s warmer than I expected.
March really is just before the laundry dries. The switching of cycles, the passing damp soiled clothes into the bin. That banal promise that hums idly from another room. It’s a good sound. I like the way the light is looking now, it feels like laundry day. This world is beautiful even when there's things to be done and one of which is I have to accept that I’m a little sad. But being sad is also a kind of touching. I will let it move me in the right direction.
“But this time when I touched him something happened in him and in me which made this touch different from any other touch either of us had ever known. And he did not resist, as he usually did, but lay where I had pulled him, against my chest. And I realized that my heart was beating in an awful way and that Joey was trembling against me and the light in the room was very bright and hot.” Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
This month instead of poetry purgatory, I’m posting an edited poem of mine. I hope you enjoy!
Skillet Ginger Chicken With Apricots
After Yasmin Fahr In a medium bowl combine ginger, cumin, coriander, salt, and then please pick up some mints on your way home—my throat hurts. Heat the oil until shimmering, roll your sleeves up to your elbow in the bare warmth of summer before it all begins. let me see that you know your way around. Add shallots, stirring occasionally in the middle of the night, where, the slight gesture of your awareness wakes me. Once fragrant, increase heat and heart. I will ask you what you dreamt about. Cook chicken, undisturbed, but not alone, sit beside me on the couch when the world is so blue there is nothing that can be said. Open the window, add the spinach. Yes, I’m ready to go home. Yes, I guess I’m already there sacatter the apricots, I will iron your pants. Flip. Use a wooden spoon to stir and I wanted to tell you something but, I forgot what it was, so, please know that I’m glad you’re sticking around. Pour in wine and remaining ginger, I was just coming to check on you. the mints are in the bag, I got you that drink you like. Once spinach is wilted and apricots softened, serve over your two hands— I will eat directly from your palms.
Your laugh at the back of my throat
The sun pass through a cloud that has lingered a little too long
My friend’s endless arms
Water skating beneath my hands
one last rainy weekend before it gets warm
The cracking of my voice from singing too loudly
Some sad tears
The pride of writing something new and original
That hope that sits in spring as a reminder that my life will be good
The perfect buzz
Our cat’s whiskers against my face in the middle of the night when they want me so desperately to love them.
One long really fun dream that is disappointing to wake up from
Fresh linen
A crisp cool morning but the kind that tells you the season is over
My 15 year old self
A very fine and lovely haircut
The yarn of all the projects I abandoned when I was trying to avoid being sad.
A perfect outfit that I’ve never worn before
My mom’s hands
my dad’s hugs
The grass of my childhood yard
The realization that it’s over, whatever it was, whatever it is.
A ticket stub
The pages of a good book (preferably one that I am utterly unaware of and don’t even yet know is good)
Silk
A breeze through the open window
A kiss on the lips
This month’s mood board is here! I hope it touches you in a gentle loving way!
If you wanna hear more about this theme, my paid newsletter comes out in two weeks. They all come with their own little goodies, a look at what I’ve been mulling over that month etc etc. If you’ve had enough, don’t worry about it. We’ll see each other somewhere groovy soon.
That’s all this month! If you enjoyed the little conversation we had let me know! Save, share, and tag @chloeinletters
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My Goodreads where I sometimes write reviews but keep updated is right here where more of my library is contained as far as books go.
My website is where you can check out my portfolio and contact me
My email, if you want to cut to the chase, is letterstochloew@gmail.com where you can let me know what you think or ask me a question about what you saw here!
Here’s to coffee Fridays, laundry day, the shattering glass, the great big feel
Love always,
Chloé
The poem 😭😭😭
beautifully written as always