Outside (1929) by Yves Tanguy
Relish your liquid ardor. Light on the mountains and all I want is everything: one ice cube melting on your knee, honeysuckle air, energetic invasions, gallons of Alsatian wine, jittery stars, songs about longing, butter your bread, electric fingertips, coral dragonflies, kiss me already, sand and starships, salty amnesia, love is relentless, let’s not talk about it, hours before daylight, tell me everything.
Relish your imprisonment. The heat of the day is seeping in and all I want is nothing: a tarp on the neighbor’s rooftop, deflated balloons tangled on a telephone pole, green netting stuck in their tree, stucco the color of mustard, who left this here, I’m already sweating, whose job is this, I’m already losing the feeling, crows on a high wire, smeared glass, I can’t fix this, wasps in the door frame, let’s not talk about it, I know you’re alone now, your body wants more from your mind, kiss me already.
I’ll take control of your motherboard. Find a comfortable seating position. I would suggest a recliner. Pour yourself a cold drink, something that smells like springtime. Think for a second about whether or not you can trust me. It’s important. Can you trust me?
Explore the brutal folds of your uncertainty. Hands like jittery birds and all you want is everything: endless desert landscapes, stones shaped like spheres, presence and clean light and oxygen, an escape from invisible standards of quality you never bought into, a release from constant expectations, crawl under these low-hanging morals, who asked you to be quieter, who asked you to disappear, who asked you to give up your jittery stars, your imaginary friends, your hope for a wild plot twist, a dangerous collaboration, something overpowering, anxious fingertips, clever bedfellows, suspense, silver coins on the table, a note that says I see you more clearly now.
Your trivia is blocking my view of this daydream. You’re either wise enough to play the fool or you are a fool, the ignorant kind, stubbornly unplayful, devoid of foolery. Without folly your wit grows duller by the minute.
There’s so much everything here. If only you were paying closer attention.
Don’t tell me what you did today and I won’t explain my plans for tomorrow. Don’t repeat some piece of your history and I won’t rehash my archaic insecurities. Most of these words are sacks of rocks, designed to drown kittens and stone neighbors. Fuck this mundane world. I know you’re as bored as I am. Tell me what small piece of everything you can imagine and we’ll build from there, adding new hallways and floors and secret corridors, rooftops covered in lemongrass and barbed wire, breathe in, bathtubs filled with rosewater and horseshoe crabs, breathe out, drawers filled with sand and sad letters, empty your head into this bucket, closets packed with old buttons and ripening peaches, touch the space between us, imagine more everything until you’re delirious, come to me speaking in tongues, skin your knees on my everything, bend your will against my everything, surrender yourself to everything.
I still love you sometimes but not always. This week’s Polly is great. See you next summer.
“see you next summer”? 🥺 thank you for all of your posts.