Ryan Desaulniers - weird list
Swamps/fog/mud/haze
Greeny brown, grey, slippery, dense
I think of these and scratch my back for mosquitoes.
They must be there. Squishiness, damp, all call them out. And I’m sweet.
She says that, too: I have sweet blood. I like that. But doesn’t everyone? Or do some people stick with that stale iron taste.
I think in colors but seldom write about them. Unless it’s a dream, then I get excited. That’s a rarer occurrence. It must be noted. But only to myself. The rule of thumb; nobody wants to hear your dreams unless it is about them. Someone sang that.
And you’ll never find me back in a swamp I was in before. That’s the new promise I made. Fog, haze, sure. But swamps can kiss my ass. I recognize their importance in the cyclical nature of rebuilding forests over a grand amount of time, I do. But I am working away from more. So my therapist says, right as I prepare to defeat the purpose.
I was saying, just the other day, “I’d rather have this fog in the morning than at night.” At night, the fog traps the light and things get impossible to see. Headlights turn into medieval lanterns. It’s gothic, but dangerous. And I still feel mosquitoes on my back.
Just like that feeling that you’ve certainly had when you’re coming up from the basement and turned the lights off. That something could rip you away from behind at any moment. Scary. Ticklish.
Turkish. I miss the food. I think about it constantly: menemen, manti, lahmacun, kokorec, pide, balik, everything, too much to list. It snowed in Istanbul while I was there, which somehow made the city even prettier. All while curing a dash of my homesickness. Massachusetts was very far away at the time.
We went camping in the mud and the dirt and the sticks and the black flies “that could carry you away.” I don’t believe that last part. Old wive’s tale. Powerful women are often discredited. Scary. But the flies really were ok this time. I miss the fear of birds or deer nosing around into our bags of food. No bears. Worse than bears. Mosquitoes. But that’s what tents are for.
I feel like I need to go deeper and type faster or I’ll just be safe and that’s not what nature is about. The elective of nature, of course, for those of us in cities. I CHOOSE to surround myself with the uncomfortable aspects of the prettiest things in the world. It’s amazing seeing a snow-capped mountain in the middle of summer. It’s incredible to propose to someone on a beach that looks prehistoric.
