Terrance Hayes
I want to always sleep beneath a bright red blanket
of leaves. I want to never wear a coat of ice.
I want to learn to walk without blinking.
I want to outlive the turtle and the turtle’s father,
the stone. I want a mouth full of permissions
and a pink glistening bud. If the wildflower and ant hill
can return after sleeping each season, I want to walk
out of this house wearing nothing but wind.
I want to greet you, I want to wait for the bus with you
weighing less than a chill. I want to fight off the bolts
of gray lighting the alcoves and winding paths
of your hair. I want to fight off the damp nudgings
of snow. I want to fight off the wind.
I want to be the wind and I want to fight off the wind
with its sagging banner of isolation, its swinging
screen doors, its gilded boxes, and neatly folded pamphlets
of noise. I want to fight off the dull straight lines
of two by fours and endings, your disapprovals,
your doubts and regulations, your carbon copies.
If the locust can abandon its suit,
I want a brand new name. I want the pepper’s fury
and the salt’s tenderness. I want the virtue
of the evening rain, but not its gossip.
I want the moon’s intuition, but not its questions.
I want the malice of nothing on earth. I want to enter
every room in a strange electrified city
and find you there. I want your lips around the bell of flesh
at the bottom of my ear. I want to be the mirror,
but not the nightstand. I do not want to be the light switch.
I do not want to be the yellow photograph
or book of poems. When I leave this body, Woman,
I want to be pure flame. I want to be your song.
* * * * *
I didn't go home last night until after 10 PM. I hung out with King V and Queen S, eating pasta and salad, and watching TV. We saw part of a James Taylor special on PBS' Great Performances, which was quite nice, as well as part of Barbara Walters' special on England's royal family. I borrowed another season of their Monk DVDs and went home to my cats who were so excited to see me they started tearing around the house like they were on crack.
* * * * *
Today makes day four of Weight Watchers and things are good. Very good. WW's point system is helping me put food in perspective, namely portions, and that's something I've always had difficulty with. In the same vein as "My checking account can't be overdrawn; I still have checks!" I present "I can't be full; there's still pasta in the pot." My language (I've said 'points' more times since Saturday than I think I ever have) and actions are changing and I am pleased. I am looking forward to the meeting on Saturday where I will get weighed again. Whoa. Did I just say I'm looking forward to getting weighed? Wow. I hope to see a good result. I'm thinking about going to a meeting after therapy tonight just to get some support.
I had a not-so-great moment last night when I realized I'd inadvertently gone over my Weight Watchers points for the day. I didn't binge or eat a cake -- I just made some high-point choices with every meal and now I know better. I won't even say that I got back on track this morning because I never left the track. I'm glad to say that I got myself out of bed and out of the house early enough this morning to hit the store for cereal and fruit so I could have a "low-points" breakfast. I also bought a container of two-percent milk to put in my coffee instead of half-and-half (mmm, creamy deliciousness) so I can save some points there as well.
It wasn't until I was calculating last night and feeling frustrated and angry and HUNGRY that I realized just how badly I want this. (The anger was also riding on a hormonal tidal wave, which didn't help.) I'm doing WW for myself and it feels great. Yesterday, I was fixing a salad at my desk and King V said it looked good and asked if it was a recipe and I said, "Sort of," and then told him, easily and without shame or holding my breath for his approval, that I had joined WW. This morning, he told me he'd been asked to write an article for a magazine and that one of the people he's to interview is on WW and asked if I wanted to read her story. I thought that was very cool. Also cool was that there was a story of a woman who had had gastric bypass and he didn't mention that part. I don't know if that's as profound as I think it is, given that I never mentioned my thoughts about g.b. surgery to him, but I still thought it was interesting. I've always had his support, even though he's often very silent about it. Support, as you know, is key and it's good to remember little moments like that whenever I get frustrated or wonder why Kashi's Go Lean Crunch tastes like granola-covered rocks.
* * * * *
On Saturday after Serena and I went to Weight Watchers and then went to brunch to test our newfound knowledge (experiment successful), I went to Sebastian and Venus' house to help them paint. They're getting ready to sell their home and move and were changing the grey-ish purple walls to a lovely adobe color. I grabbed a brush and dug in for a couple hours of painting behind railings and smooshing color into the corners of staircases. The house features vaulted ceilings, so there were people on the first floor with rollers and paint edgers (I think that's what Sebastian called them) attached to long poles to reach the second floor. Those poles were primarily held, of course, by straight men who called out to their wives, "Honey, come hold my pole," or "My pole is HUGE!" or "Don't you love my pole?" The whole event was a lot more fun than I thought it would be, but I still had to jet after two hours so I could go home and take a nap before meeting Vanessa and Brenda for sushi.
* * * * *
I can't believe I'm stretching Monday's post across three days, but I'll have to blog about hanging out with Casey on a balmy, balmy day, my plans to buy a bike, and the bitchin' salads I've made the last couple days sometime tomorrow. Time for some head shrinkin'!
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