coconutgrease
Tuesday. I call out with the birds during the pre-dawn chorus and send my prayers up to the nests that halo magnolia limbs. Like trading coins for wishes, you’d said. Or was it casting dull hooks into the sea? It’s become routine, moving through the glow of the newborn sun, mouth watering at every hydrangea bush I see—the way I want to tear into the petals with my teeth reminds me I am animal too. How I was once wild for you. Now I am learning that not all cages look the same. Remember the documentary about prescribed fires?—the audacity of scorching the earth in the name of renewal. A controlled burn. I never did understand how you could set something ablaze after calling it home
it’s quiet now. The birds have found their mate, or have gone back to bed. The sky shakes out its early morning blues, trying to become lighter, brighter. In the bathroom, I scoop curds of half-solid-half-liquid coconut oil with a rusted spoon. Turn the grease into a time machine and lick away at raspberry blush, dark mascara tire treads with white tissue. Like it’s nothing, getting back to the before. My face shines and it is easy to believe I am brand new. I wonder, if someone kissed my eyes, would my lashes taste like a sweaty day at the beach? Would I leave sand grit in the deep of your teeth? Would I feel as good as a day in the sun? Vision blurs. I blink
blink again. That's life now. Force reset my vision, but permanent oil slicks over pupil and iris. Blink once more, then keep my eyes open. Keep my eyes on the flames to keep the flames from getting to me. Get back to life and living, whatever that means. Magnolia blossoms and their shellacked green leaves mob together outside the window. It’s a tense rapture, the way they demand to know: if you were a bird, how would you know the difference between what is real and what is plastic?
_________________________________________________
M. Price is a Brooklyn-based writer and photographer who lives with her cat, Babycat.
twitter: @notmywurst
_________________________________________________