the dress

4 november

alright, alright. Put your leggings on, fasten your garter belts and slip your arms through the straps, pinch your cheeks, slide the split cherry across your lips, and spread mud on your lashes. Slips are for the sensual, dresses for the altars, heels for the house, and pearls, the streets.

how many of us were there anyway? almost seven? yes, almost seven. Most from an island, some were landlocked, and oh the romance, the lines of the roads in between.

I will not focus because if I were to—all of the same would be looked over, all the skin and the fabric, all the hairs and wood. the materials leave smell, and smells—well we all describe those different, all have our own relationship there.

it is hanging in my closet—next to the T-shirts and slacks—aside the ties and work shirts. I can see my hand underneath it and smell Cuba, and Greenpoint on its nape—smell Colorado and Loveland on its waist line—I can taste whiskey and apples on its lace, I can see blue gods and jasmine, see sex and men, see finger nails and stages on its bodice, I can hear narrative and coffee brewing, suicide attempts, loss and competition, sisters and aunts, addicts and divorce on its gold thread.

and we all wear it, to and from the places we have to be. we cash it in when we are broke and buy it again for the weekend. we bring it home and hide it in the freezer, we cling to it in our sleep and remember its scent, like soil, like earth in its ruffles. we bite its corners, trying, trying out hardest to understand it through different senses, we taste it, and ingest it, and we tell ourselves it is special because of its cursive, because of its ability to speak with us when we are jealous or embarrassed, we, we need its golden guidance. Follow the stitching, and we do, hypnotized by its life, its stories and the way it leaves when it is no longer needed. The way it knows just how long to stay in order to avoid trauma and yet still learn in complete, total, and graceful vengeance.

But—really—I cant find it, not this time, not in the mountains, or in the kitchen, not the bed or the window sill, it is alluding me and this, well, this makes me hopeless, makes me tired.

So I begin again—the straps, belts, and the mud and cherries, I head to the city-center, go behind curtains in this shared fabric and photograph decisions.