My Mental Milkcrate » Jessica Coles

Treating a sugar rush like a solution

Jessica Coles — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 02:07:20 +0000

In times like these, the weariness is passing into something like resignation, which I keep insisting is acceptance. And you, who know me or don’t know me or find here some circumstance that perhaps coincides with a moment or your lifetime, are not sure how either of us ended here. The plan falls flat like learning to juggle pancakes. Ramble bamble, roil and scramble. These awkward twinings of inside and out. Wander over my skin like vines on a statue in a place where vines can grow on statues. Perhaps all I need is a poem and a pen.

Connecting

Jessica Coles — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:09:50 +0000

We sat on the balcony, my words and I, tossing back ice-cold cider and summertime snacks. Sweating bottles and sweaty temples, the sticky sun crisping our stomachs and toes. We chuckled into the silence of crows and sparrows and magpies and bees. Biding and buying time. Stocking up against the autumn staring into the corners of our eyes. We knew, my words and I, where the story would turn. Where the climax would shudder into rapid resolution. We sat anyway. Stayed put. Smiled and held our hands against the concrete.

Things my husband has said #47

Jessica Coles — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 03:01:02 +0000

“The single best way to deal with a bossy person is to find a bossy person you agree with most of the time.”

On dead celebrities

Jessica Coles — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:07:37 +0000

So there I was, not thinking about actors or pop icons. And now, I am. But only because it’s so fucking surreal that I should care in any way about the gap that is left in human interaction or consumption or experience. I find that I do care. Legends shouldn’t die so young. Ah, there it is: the Legend. I equate this persona not with a person who sleeps and farts and stubs his toe, but with a story that is written and read and interpreted. And there is no more to the story. There will be epilogue, prologue, subtext, and apocrypha, but the story ends this way, always. With a lacunal chapter on what comes next. Anger and grief are left in the collection for a sentence or a paragraph. And then the ink fades. This specific emotional experience is not of archival quality. And Legends find a way to thrive anyway. Without and beyond me.

Minutiae 1

Jessica Coles — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:26:31 +0000

Within the quiet of your not saying anything, I became. Perhaps. Words wrapped around concepts like scotch tape wound around a rubber ball.

Le coeur

Jessica Coles — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:10:43 +0000

If you were here (or I were there), I would tell you I love you. This profound wave of the unconditional that I can neither explain nor support. I love the fact of your existence and that love becomes a joyful tracing of movement. The way you lean a skateboard back and forth down the sidewalk. I love your mismatched clothes and the jerking movements of your imperfect limbs. I love your tired smile and your tired jokes and your tired isolation. I love you because you do not know I love you. And if I told you, instead of believing that perhaps I leave a trail of barely perceptible affection like the scent of twilight, you wouldn’t accept it. Or you would and I would forget how to offer. The way words forget what it means to love. The unknown with a whole heart.

Ways of Reconstructing

Jessica Coles — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 03:06:14 +0000

If you’ll forgive me, I don’t quite feel like talking. If you were here (or I were there), we would sit in silence and be grateful. Perhaps we would hold hands, but maybe not. The gestures of strangers. I picture you laughing often. Despite what I don’t know about you.

Dear everyone,

Jessica Coles — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 13:26:42 +0000

My summer has begun. Summers are usually a whirlwind of gorgeous insanity. I try to pack as much activity as possible into the months when everything happens in my city. When outside is the only place I want to be. It’s my time to collect experiences. And I have this habit of burning myself out. I have no reason to believe this summer will be any different. There is nothing orderly or scheduled about my brain during June, July, and August. These months are about festivals and weddings and road trips and camping. No ocean this year, but many mountains to be hiked and explored.

I’ve decided to let go and enjoy the ride. I’ve discovered the pattern of my years, and there’s no sense in fighting the seasons. I write best when the weather is cool and I have nowhere better to be than inside. I’m going to relax in the sun as much as I can while I can go outside without six layers of clothing. Since the weather is on no schedule and follows no pattern, I’m abandoning my scheduled posting for the summer, and I’m happy with that decision. I’ll still write and some of it will end up here, but I can’t be strict with myself when there’s precious sunshine to lay around in. Things might be different if I lived somewhere with more regular seasons, but we take what we can get around here, and this year, it seems to be even less than usual.

But since I’m speaking as me and not my fictionalized narrator self, I want to say thank you to everyone who reads and comments. I’m fairly bad about responding to individual comments because I’m not always sure what to say, but I read and appreciate your words and reactions. You keep me going and you make me want to write better every time.

Affectionately,
Jess

These neologisms would not catch on

Jessica Coles — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:40:46 +0000

She cannot admit that she misses him. It would perforate her larynx and puncture his inner ear. She is frustrated with the weight of phrases that should be light and uttered often. She wishes there were other words with the shape of this gap and the shade of this affection. Her tongue is ossifying with the unsaid.

Why I can’t: name the unnamable

Jessica Coles — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 02:17:38 +0000

My day is a struggle against inconsistency. The phrases one ought to say but never does. The phrases one shouldn’t say but often does. The weapon of buttoned lips holding what falls misshapen off the tongue. There is more than these arbitrary preferences. One day I will smash it all and start again. I will be dizzy from holding my breath.