aoife

dear everyone,

I don't write much anymore. I feel that spark in my heart but it's weak like a candle flame sputtering. it needs to be fed.

I'm watching a movie set in New Orleans and I miss that city right now with that hunger for something that you know you can never have again, something that's dead or gone or just changed so that you're afraid to see it, afraid of it not being what you remember.

My friend said he could never live in a city without a soul and then he left New Orleans for Denver. but it was for love, so maybe that makes it OK.

I can't create away from the ocean.

I can't breathe here for all the yuppies.

I know I can write like you know you can swim, drive, ride a bike. It's not anything I ever had to learn, but it's something that I need to feed and nourish and allow to rest. just like the rest of me, rest is not on the menu these days.

I have love, but that's not enough and everyone knows you can't be in love without loving yourself. and I can't love myself when I can't find myself. I want to be able to love properly, with all of me.

The magic gets helped sometimes by the right book, the right song, the right smell of carnival cotton candy somehow settling in my kitchen over my cup of tea (green tea taking the place of green liquor and whiskey that I used to poison myself with to get to that place). cotton candy helped me write this right now. spin spun sugar. music. jazz. water.

Skin. sweat. ink. whispers.

I don't look at suicidegirl sets anymore really. I like to look at pictures of the girls with all their things still on, personalities, outfits, necklaces that spell out words or tattoos that tell stories. each one is a little bit different and that can't be summed up in stupid one-word tags. you can't be characterized by the color of your hair.

my sister called me today from her lunch break at the art museum in philadelphia. suddenly working at an art museum sounded like exactly what I want: quiet. beautiful. orderly. respectful. hardly a career ambition, but I'm sick of being the boss and being responsible for my family's business not imploding. I never wanted to run a business. right now I kind of want to be one of my old professors from Tulane, a guest writer who lived in a big house in the Ninth Ward (wonder if it's still even there? and what she does without it? who she is without it?) with a grave in the side yard and all types of artists in the front room and on the porch. I want a porch swing that I can sit in and discuss the nature of the universe. I want a spiral staircase to ascend to crawl in bed with my lover.

I want my life to feel like me.

I don't want to do this anymore.