scent of the day: Kinamantan, by Ensar Oud
A strange but alluring concoction: gray-green zest bitterness of Qi Nan (here with ginger zing, but without the spices) plus gingivitus earthy mint of Tigerwood that you feel in the sinuses and, especially from afar, a juicy-fruit gum somewhere between L’heure Exquise and Jubilation XXV. This can come across, despite the fact that no vetiver is listed, as an artisanal cousin to Tom Ford’s Grey Vetiver—only using something more like the ruh khus of Layers of Jade or Vetiver Nocturne and presenting us with several jarring tensions that the Tom Ford’s much more sober and staid composition definitely does not give us: wintergreen gum yet pink bubblicious (tigerwood and clove meets what seems tolu balsam and blackcurrant and opoponax), garage-band muddiness yet studio-production ethereality (hyrax and oud meets black ambergris and Tibetan musk and Kashmir musk). Ash in base reminds me of Myths Man. Nottom line: jungle edition bubblivious chewed in civet halitotic mouth and then stuck in a full 80s ashtray. Extremely alluring. 80S is definitely here just in the form of oakmoss. Now that this has settled in my collection for like a year and now that I have the new Chypre Sultan Maroke no Ko, this is like a tea-bent sibling of the creamier chocolatier Chypre Sultan. I might like this better than Chypre Sultan. But I have not let that one sit yet so who knows.
MADE FOR YOU AND ME 3: hive Being (Stanzas 2018—part 13)
cunt cheeks
cunt cheeks squelching when you pinch and wriggle them like holiday grandmas
a wine-and-pills bitch, candles around the tub
stipulations on what she is willing to do with you rarely ever hold for the celebrity
using a tragedy to disappear
“been liked my niggas 35-plus since I was like 10—and what?”
the urge to perpetuate problems you can resolve
striving to do the same tricks as your male counterparts
“Wait, wait. Midgets don’t have magical powers?”
but surely eugenics would come on the table were the only humans being born incapable even of the rock-bottom requisites of survival
the same people who stress the importance of representation too often deny that even a near monoculture of horror (hyperviolent hypersexual) feed backs any influence
still wanting others to learn the Word and have hope, you keep up the you-can-kick-it-like-me-with-a-little-G-O-D even after lapsing back to toilet credit-card pill crushing
refugees crossing deserts, peeling off the less vital of their already few vitals as they go: photo albums, art, diaries, dolls
deny being in denial and the one charging you with being in denial nods in quiet self-satisfaction
ashamed enough to give the other only the sight of your convulsive spine, not the upchuck hurling on the floor
performing on the sofa as if you were not addicted yourself during the intervention for a loved one
asked not to return to the writer’s workshop due to the triggers of your writing reminds us that artists too can be conservative lame-os
amplify the hard times caused by weak men so we can get to the strong men already
hating home for all the home-hatred home has emboldened
thou shalt say “black people are oppressed” or else be banned from friend groups (many of which are built up of people wisely faking their narrative allegiance) and deplatformed, fired—everyone running scared reveals the real powers that be
Cancel Culture stems from the hitherto unnamed Troll Culture: no one, let alone internet-grown students, are reduced to epileptic lumps of PTSD after reading Twain— so to think they need, in turn, safer readings and easier As is to have been trolled
fentanyl patches peeled off the elderly for just a little lick
old enough to worry whether you have outlived the title “mother”
lessening the horror of rape by over-applying the concept
the brain likes to find other things to do if the body is not moving while thinking
assuming that everything out of a dementia mouth is crazy
laughter as a weapon against aberration
what could be too insignificant to be a problem for that new breed of recreational outragers gung ho for a victim’s excuse to rage for justice?
the expectation that you should be yapping on shrooms can help you avoid going inward
attempting to normalize, and apportion blame for, the drunken abuse of the stepchild now in process by high-fiving your biological son between blows
the mother, turned empty-nester by college, finding herself now a sous-chef: peeling, chopping
there is only one way to stop, permanently, the sound in your head, not in your ears
having sex with someone whom you realize—in the very process— to have a perspective, seeing eyes
“Tell mom I love her,” the father says as they leave his unfurnished apartment for Sunday drop-offs still unbelievable
all the parts of you that you had to kill for a chance at being decent at your work
bullet-riddled food deserts radiate a signal to its children: you are not much worthy of care
the selfie stick eliminates that last hope for connection: asking someone to take your picture
gang members commuting each morning to their turfs
drunks who act like they are foodies to hide that they are drunks
but pain teaches us to count our blessings
wake to sleep or sleep to wake?
what can be grave enough to preclude laughter?
is he too blind to see, or just not that into you?
dead eyes dusty right away
visiting places seen in movies because they were seen in movies
the days of arguing over who would keep which photo-booth pictures
toadstools from the ass of a dead human
an upside to dementia: forgetting to be depressed
each time unable to help but read the Boy Scout three-finger salute as how many the troop leader got in
the death of someone well-known to us so often we milk as a purgative chance to voice guilts never voiced to that someone
most humane, most real, most loving are those willing to help the sky-scraper jumper figure out if suicide is best and how best to do the deed
living on laxatives and oat bran along with antidepressants to combat the down of low calories
to get on an authority’s good side, ask questions seemingly nontrivial that you know it can answer easily
how long do you manage to abstain yourself, typically, when a molester appears in the national headlines?
hearing the one operating on you inform the attending surgeon “I just can’t—I don’t know how”
not self-improvement, only more consumption, in answer even to transpiercing trauma
fuck that age when the neighbor dad cockblocks our window strokery—brown budlet just starting to plump those raw-kneed Dora shorts and then bam, in a blink, dribbling her soccer ball up and down the sidewalk in eye-mesh burqa like a black Pac-Man ghost
Mary, for all the atheistic outrage, consented to being God’s doulos (owned thing, slave not servant) since twelve was thirty then—so if we wince at her bearing his mega load, ought we not wince at the idea today of a twenty-five-year-old girl consenting to ride?
the paradox: opposing legally compelled speech is not anti-trans (since, in fact, it has nothing to do with trans)— and yet it is one of the deepest ways to support trans lives
