Petal (an offshoot of the Leaflet)
I show you my old notes, I provide cryptic context to soften the folds of time.
Turn of a season, turn of another new leaf. Autumn star-ish leaves streaking the air like eye floaters, and I can’t help but see its softer, blush cousin: petals, filtering the sky with pink teardrops.
When I think of petals, I think of the ones on hydrangeas, the same way when you think of candles, you may think of the smell of vanilla or allspice.
In this digital scroll, I’d like to leave in my wake “digital petals” (static drafts from my Notion and text on the Notes app) I have not thought much to do with.
Each hold this eternal intimacy to them—eternal in the sense that it is something that happened, and because it happened it will always happen.
First are snippets I meant to share on this newsletter months ago, and for what it’s worth, embed a slice of life that stands like a tall cake plated in my hand—my mouth not sure whether it’s too precious to eat.
From July 27th, at 10:47pm:
Now, reworking as a found poemdiary:
Having the bf play as
an Indonesian goddess in CIV V (5)
who wants
to build her faith and live by the sea. Feeling
like we are in each other’s private stream,
like being the VIP row of the DJ’s set.
Am I a Discord Kitten^(tm) right now?
For breakfast: crispy bacon, homegrown tomatoes, &
Armenian cucumbers (Thank you, Sandy)
mint green tea, peach pocky
I wanted to write a leaflet Q&A style, to play with prompt (and apparently share this double choco muff recipe I still have not tried. I collect recipes and race the calendar for occasions to make them):
I have since settled into a new patch of the quilt. Being here added years back to my life in the affordance of peace and proximity to very old trees.
In a future essay, I might say more about training jiujitsu, but for those in which this is new—yeah! I’ve been getting beat up.
Peace affordances are “the intended and unintended ways that technology can be used to help people move towards peace." Though I did not flesh this section out much, it appears that I registered lightning as a technology, or maybe I meant the cloud, or maybe I meant the act of witnessing as a technology. I don’t know. If I were to answer “How have you afforded peace?” today, I’d say it was not going on any social media since waking up. I went straight to tucking a bagel in the toaster, off to brush my teeth. The “tech” being: a slow morning.
Onto phone notes, these are the ones I’ve loosen from their perforated ring round the notebook’s metal spiral.
Yes, another note about hydrangeas. Namely, it is a poem I wrote while the window was furiously down, the wind gushing in, my love taking us to the Eternal Falls in Buffalo, NY…or maybe this was on the trip’s leg where I had to pee with immense power and discovered one of NY’s large gas station with green roofs and 4 name-brand fast food eats like Shake Shack and Jamba Juice.
We stayed in Erie, Michigan to rest at the behest’s of a long driving day. I remember a spot open early there with very bouncy donuts.
The principle image that onset these clandestine two clauses—forbid my bf from seeing me simp sentences on my phone while stealing glances—was from catching the light be somewhere I kiss:
A poem for Erie, Michigan in July:
Hydrangeas like bubbles,
numerous and pink and blue,
so round they could float.
The light on wet,
the light on his lips
shimmering like a fish
looking for god in the Lakes.
Erie a sort of birdcall.
To this day, I never revisited it to revise it in any way.
It is thousand-year lava hardened into a slick black rock. It is a sweet souvenir. I can tell/smell now how lucky I felt in that moment. Much of this is true.
This next one’s a bit more violent. This was the insight and urgent knowledge I noted from watching a video of the arm drag technique by a BJJ legend in Atlanta; It was never meant to be a poem, but the paradox is that it is a found poem:
High ground takes victory;
low ground lays the truth,
What would it take to write honestly again?
-Isabel
