tempest

I write in lieu of love, to fill that empty space above death

Annie Ernaux, Getting Lost

Spring seems to be breaking into a kind of week of summer and it feels like a trick.
I’ve found that when I’m really in turmoil, I purchase a plane ticket and this time I’m leaving in May:
Staying still is how you suffocate
I remember learning to swim and pushing my stomach up to the surface to suspend myself in a floating position. 
It never lasted very long

Once, I flew to Paris and quit the job I had while I was on the flight
I went to see my friend, E, and I also had just had my heart broken by someone I can barely recall now 
When I arrived, the tempest that flooded the Seine arrived with me  
E later casually commented that I bring the tempest with me wherever I go 
It think it’s true 

I have been having these conversations with women about cruelty and about capacities for love and I keep concluding the same things over and over 
And these aren’t novel conclusions
They are actually so uninteresting that I think I keep revisiting the same thoughts and constructing more complex frameworks for it all so it can be less disappointingly boring 
A tedious repetition  
I would actually respect some ingenuity in betrayals

People strip themselves and betray themselves in the simplest gestures, 
It is so slight 
I keep thinking of Anne Boyer: 
I am the dog who can never be happy