c-m-b-writes

[c-m-b-writes]

Follow @inbedwithbooksnola on Instagram to keep up with my club’s monthly picks and weekly recommendations!

[c-m-b-writes]

Currently: 

On an extended hiatus from short form- my absence here is all apart of the plan, people. I’m writing a hybrid novel/screenplay geared toward the masses that find pages and pages of complete sentences next to incomprehensible or else unworthy of their prolonged attention. 

It’s easy to swallow, even easier to digest. A wholly satisfying form of literature. Stay tuned because I’m pulling it off. *smiling devil face emoji*

[c-m-b-writes]

well it could be that

it’s the strength that i lack

with this weight on my back

the smallest heart on my sleeve

only select souls can see.

(or it could be that

i’m waiting for word

from parts of the universe unheard

and wondering if i’ll be waiting forever.)

1/29/19

[c-m-b-writes]

Love

When is love a weakness and when is it a strength? 

Love is a weakness when your brain is occupied by love’s doting thoughts, when it’s at capacity and deaf to reason. It is a weakness when it makes your knees tremble, when it holds on too tight to the strings of your heart, when it makes you blind to what may lie beyond. 

Love is a strength when it lights your darkest hours, when it lifts you off your feet. It is a strength when it doubles your power and gives you pause to speak your truth. 

[c-m-b-writes]

Moshi Moshi (2010)

“Peace and acceptance suddenly fell into my hands. Like a patch of rich soil that had soaked up plenty of sun mounding gently into an empty space, I felt something akin to an answer settle in me.” (181)

-

“A premonition of the end that would come to me someday enveloped me softly. It was neither uncomfortable nor miserable.” (189)

-

“The sense of release was so violent I thought I might soar too high, and breathe in too much freedom, and burn myself up in the flames of my own emotions.” (192)

-

“Under the freezing starry sky, I felt an understanding make its way deeper into me: the preciousness of me, as an individual, with my own experience which no one else in the world could know the whole of, but which I shared parts of with so many people everything whose experiences touched and overlapped with mine, even if I was young and miserable and looked like I had nothing at all.” (198)

-

“Even if the vine was severed with a hatchet, or burned to the ground, nothing would take away the landscape inside people’s hearts or the time that lived on inside them.” (200)

[c-m-b-writes]

She's a specter roaming through wilting halls, lightly grazing the chipping walls, with gleaming talons, 2 sharpened claws; breathing in the old, dead feelings, dancing in sheets under crumbling ceilings, she glides through centuries, long lost eras, until she finds, what she's most scared of. c.m.b. —————————————————— Photographer: @cameron.blake Hair: @chrisguidrydoeshair MUA/glow: @glow.bygab Styling: @shawnyb37 Location: @theseraphimhouse ——————————————————

[c-m-b-writes]

Song of Solomon (1977)

“Let me tell you right now the one important thing you’ll ever need to know: Own things. And let the things you own own other things. Then you’ll own yourself and other people too. Starting Monday, I’m going to teach you how.” (Macon Dead Sr. 55)

-

“’They say Till had a knife,’ Freddie said. / ‘They always say that. He could have had a wad of bubble gum, they’d swear it was a hand grenade.’” (82)

-

“Fear lay like a pair of crossed paws on his chest.” (113)

-

“And all he knew in the world about the world is what other people told him.” (120)

-

“Of the brilliant bitterness between his father and his mother, a bitterness as smooth and fixed as steel.” (126)

-

“It’s just depravity that they try to make glorious, natural.” (157)

-

“Too much tail. All that jewelry weighs it down. Like vanity. Can’t nobody fly with all that shit. Wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.” (179)

-

“For now he knew what Shalimar knew: if you surrendered to the air, you could rideit.” (137)

[c-m-b-writes]

Death Kit (1967)

“For the coarse menace of detection and punishment, Diddy has substituted the subtler menace of uncertainty. He has given his anxiety the form of an enigma.” (37)

-

“The mind is a malicious sovereign.” (49)

-

“Everyone has some kind of eyes. There are the squinty-eyed, the fished-eyed, the dragon-eyed, the piercing-eyed, the wolf-eyed. And the no-eyed and the all-eyed. The no-eyed not to be confused with the blind.” (186)

-

“His love is the signature of his life.” (226)

-

“Though his job is to protect Hester from the world, Diddy will try to view the world more generously. Not only as an arena of contamination, but also as a space to be continually reinvented and reexamined. If only he weren’t so fearful of being touched. Convinced in advanced as he is that it’s bound to be wounding, not soothing. So fearful of touching. Convinced in advance as he is that he’d bound to be repulsed.” (229)

-

“It occurs to Diddy that perhaps all his terrors derive from the mixed blessing of being able to see. Because he can see, he can perceive the world abstractly. At a distance. That’s what Diddy has to unlearn. Disband his imagination, which is glued with incredulity upon past images and gazes with apprehension into the tube of the future. That imagination which depletes his vitality, consigning everything to the rack of time. To be in the present; to be without imagination, unable to anticipate anything; to be.” (229)

-

Noble blindness and ignoble blindness (268)

-

“What good is a confession of guilt which, apart from burdening the hearer, carries no consequences?” (274)

-

“Death = an encyclopedia of life.” (310)

-

“As though Diddy were living at last in his eyes, only in his eyes. The outward eye that names and itemizes, the inward eye that throbs with thought.” (311)

[c-m-b-writes]

The Bluest Eye (1970)

“Misery colored by the greens and blues in my mother’s voice took all of the grief out of the words and left me with a conviction that pain was not only endurable, it was sweet.” (26)

-

“Winter tightened our heads with a band of cold and melted our eyes.” (61)

-

“There was a hint of spring in her sloe green eyes, something summery in her complexation, and a rich autumn ripeness in her walk.” (62)

-

“They seemed to have taken all of their smoothly cultivated ignorance, their exquisitely learned self-hatred, their elaborately designed hopelessness and sucked it all up into a fiery cone of scorn that had burned for ages in the hollows of their minds- cooled- and spilled over lips of outrage, consuming whatever was in its path.” (65)

-

“Their roots are deep, their stalks are firm, and only the top blossom nods in the wind.” (82)

-

“Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to another – physical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion.” (122)

-

“His subconscious knew what his conscious mind did not guess – that hating them would have consumed him, burned him up like a piece of soft coal, leaving only flakes of ash and a question mark of smoke.” (151)

-

“All of our waste which we dumped on her and which she absorbed. And all of our beauty, which was hers first and which she gave to us.” (205)

-

“Love is never any better than the lover.” (206)

[c-m-b-writes]

Absence

Reason I have not updated this page in quite awhile: I’m currently working on a chapbook and do not want to share all of its content freely in this particular space. Stay tuned...

[c-m-b-writes]

i’ll pay my penance

for time spent wasted –

all these hours i’ve been faded,

        under the spell of a brief feeing,

lost in a mind twisted, reeling,

        seduced, charmed, but not yet jaded,

there’s still a chance for me to make it.

1/14/19

[c-m-b-writes]

the humidity is tearing my pages in two,

           water is dripping between my eyes and you.

the drops fall to the paper,

the ink runs likes a river,

no matter the current, I know my words carry into forever.

1/2/9

[c-m-b-writes]

Gold plated string, 

I’m ripping at the seam, 

Desperately trying to unravel the Dream.

10/4/18

[c-m-b-writes]

I deck myself in gold

Because I want to touch the sun.

Liquid heat dripping down

Anoint me as The One.

/

The scorched, the scoured, 

A torched soul left in ashes,

I rise a red phoenix, radiant & empowered.

10/5/18

[c-m-b-writes]

When I bleed,

I let the blood dry.

The red will go as it may,

A healed wound carries me into another day.

12/7/18

[c-m-b-writes]

Peaches (pt. II)

At five o’clock on the tick, Dr. Angelica lit an incense stick and did one languid lap around her office to ensure the envelopment of her healspace with the scent of “dragon’s breath.” The metal tips of her track pants’ drawstrings clicked and clacked as she rounded each corner of the underground room.

Like a snake slipping from its skin, Peaches shed her vintage Celine coat. She laid it on the couch beside her and sat patiently as the ritual was carried out, careful to hold her breath as Dr. Angelica passed behind her with the stream of smoke. Peaches swore she could make out the slim, swirling bodies of dragons circling around her, but they always sank into the air before she was able to make that claim out loud. Besides, she figured it best that hallucinations weren’t added to her roster of problems. She often thought of her reality as a balloon tied to a thin string she gripped in the hollow of her palm, a string that could slip from her grasp at any moment and fly away.

Seated in silence, Peaches watched as this adept older woman shimmied and waved the smoke through the air. It was only her fifth visit to this rather unsurprisingly eccentric sex therapist, but she already felt holistically connected with the woman. She came to see her as a maternal figure, a guide on her quest for self-control.

Dr. Angelica was a renowned yet unorthodox professional who specialized in treating patients who compulsively partook in particularly dangerous sexual behavior. She regularly attended STARR conventions, giving intimate talks under the titles of “Your Vegetable Drawer and You”, or “Sex as a Race With No Finish Line.” Her most recent research involved a very thorough case study of her last romantic partner, a man who could only reach climax in a moving vehicle. She published a book about the observations under the title The Sexuality of Inertia.She took intense and costly precautions to keep her business’s address off the strands of the interweb in preference of desperate patients who find her by ways of fate.

Fate favored Peaches in the parking lot of a local motel one night in late September. Peaches sat drinking herself into oblivion after a predictably bad ending to a one-night stand. Her keen foresight unfortunately didn’t make the results any less painful and every gulp of gin was meant to melt her world to black. A woman named Tamara found her under the lot’s neon sign looking like an escaped rodeo clown. She offered Peaches her hanky and took a seat next to her for a vulnerable moment of sisterhood, an exchange Peaches will never be able to recall but will always be thankful for. The next morning Peaches woke up to find a business card in her pocket with Dr. Angelica’s information splayed across the front in an inexplicably calming font. She called her with half-hearted hope and found herself graced with the help she needed.

Peaches inhaled the fading tails of the pale serpent beasts; as her head grew lighter, her thoughts became supple. Dr. Angelica assumed her kneeled position on an ornate pillow across from the couch and readied herself to begin Peaches’ hypnosis.

“Are you ready?” asked Angelica with her signature singsong rasp.

Peaches breathed in and nodded.

“When did you last reach climax?”    

“You man my last feeding?”

Angelica held up a hand. Her bangles jangled.

“No, dear. Change starts with the language you use, the way you process your experiences. Let go of that word in this context.”

“Last Wednesday.”

“Mm,” replied Dr. Angelica. “Close your eyes and I will begin the countdown. Release your hesitations to succumb to the hypnosis. This space is now yours alone.”

Peaches settled deeper into the couch and closed her eyes. She felt like a bird nestled in the crack of a branch.

“Ten…nine…eight…”

…Angelica rang a small, gentle gong. Peaches sank under the mercy of her words.

[c-m-b-writes]

Peaches (pt. I)

Peaches was acutely aware of the fact that he couldn’t take his eyes off her mouth. With each brief word spoken, her candy-stained tongue would peak out as if to say hello to this charmingly demure mailman standing before her in the grand hotel lobby.

Today: blue, yesterday: green. Blueberry or blue raspberry? Sour apple or watermelon? Would he be able to lean in close enough to determine the flavor from the smell of her sugary breath? Jacob was sure he wouldn’t. He just stood there stunted with an armful of paper and cardboard, waiting for his brain to regain function.

“It’s from the candy,” said Peaches through a rosy smile. She brought the tips of her cherry manicured nails up to her mouth before her eyes directed him to a crystal dish on the corner of her desk filled to the brim with a rainbow assortment of hard candies.

“This job can have its lulls; sugar helps keep me going…would you like one?” she asked while tucking a fluff of chocolate curls behind an ear dripping with pearls.

“Thank you,” replied Jacob after some concentration. He picked a candy from the bowl and slid it into his pants’ pocket. “One for the road.”

Peaches liked Jacob in a romantic sort of way, but she was playing the semi-long game according to her book. A week had gone by since he was assigned this route, putting him in the almost daily presence of Peaches Delahare, concierge extraordinaire. Five days of receiving postcards, packages, and parcels, a duty typically reserved for the hotel’s main desk but carried out with her instead. A new protocol that only these two initiated and knew about. Once he left she simply carried the haul over to Jessie at the front desk, who, in return, would accept the small piles of mail with a knowing look defined by an arched brow.

Peaches watched as he shuffled his footing and shifted his navy mailbag further onto his shoulder. It was difficult for Jacob to remain composed around a woman like Peaches, a figure of rich softness and gentle strength. She possessed an alluring sort of glow that radiated a nameless power. He was Icarus and she was the shining sun he couldn’t help but fly into. She was the ambrosia he couldn't resist and couldn’t wait to taste.

“I do have a question for you though,” he said as he handed over the hotel’s mail.

Peaches cocked her head in wonder, her thick curls rotating like the fluffed mane of a Persian cat. Her heart stopped in anticipation of the question. Could he know what she wanted no other soul to know?

“Is Peaches your real name?”

Amusement spread across the young woman’s round face. Relief spread through her body like a warm hit of morphine.  

“I’m sorry, I guess it’s none of my business. People must ask you that more than enough times to make you sick by now,” said Jacob while tugging his starched collar.

“I can think of plenty other things that make me more sick than that question. Pea soup, the smell of boiled eggs maybe.” She snorted at her own lame joke and then looked up into his lily pad eyes. “You’re fine for asking. This can be misleading.” She tapped the gold plated nametag pinned to her chest. “I’ve had the nickname for as long as I can remember. I’m told it all started with these.” She pinched her pink cheeks and smiled proudly. “Technically my birth name is Kendra, but my mother would call me ‘Peachy Keen.’” She cuffed a backhand over the side of her mouth and nodded towards the hotel’s main desk. “Don’t tell these guys, though.”

Jacob laughed and held up his right hand to swear his allegiance. She wondered how much she could trust him to keep her secrets.

Peaches’ desk phone rang, shattering the timid chemic mood like the roars of a dump truck interrupting a deep, weekend sleep. With a swift click she sent it to voicemail.

Jacob patted his mailbag and said, “I should be going. Only so many hours in the day to deliver.” He saluted her with his pledged hand. “So, um, see you on Monday then.”

Peaches screwed up her face as he turned to walk away.

“Hey, wait!”

Jacob stopped and turned faster than a spinning jack.

“You can’t leave before I have the chance to give you my number.”

She beckoned him over with a ruby nail. Jacob’s face turned a sun-kissed shade of pink.

“Oh,” he said with a small laugh.

She handed him a business card with her information.

“I already wrote my cell on the back,” she said. She failed to say that she wrote it first thing that morning barely seconds after getting to her desk.

A bright smile spread over Jacob’s face and for a moment Peaches could see what he looked like as a boy.

“I’ll be waiting on your call,” said Peaches.

She gripped the moonstone hanging from her neck and watched him walk away. There was a noticeably new skip in his step.

Moments later, her boss marched up in front of her desk putting a nasty halt to her savor of victory. Mr. Slear assumed a ridged position that asserted the attitude of superiority in a place where so much illusionary importance could never be called for. His face was pinched like the top of a dumpling and the remaining strands of his hair were slicked back in an attempt to appear groomed in an upper class sort of way even though it was clear he had accumulated debt over the years as an obsessive collector of something like ceramic flowers, vintage pocket squares, or Coca Cola memorabilia. He was sort of like that glop of snot inconveniently sneezed onto a hand rather than a tissue. Something that needed to be wiped away. His employees often referred to him as Mr. Slime behind his back and out of audible range.

“Ms. Delahare, I have received a complaint from Mr. Woods regarding your unprofessional manner towards him on Sunday night.”

Peaches closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When her powdered lids opened, she was looking at the world through a consciously blue, calming filter.

“Mr. Slear, that man was incredibly inappropriate with me. He clearly had no regard for me as a human, so I showed no regard for him in return.”

Slear’s face glowed like the coils of a burning stove. “You refused him service and gave him an attitude. It’s your job to provide our guests with outstanding service. Have you forgotten that?”

“No, sir. He requested a prostitute be sent to his room. I denied the request. He proceeded to call me a cow and a dumb bitch to which I responded: ‘Well which is it, sir? Am I a heifer or a dog because I can’t be both.’ I was just trying to get him straight.”

Slear squeezed his watery eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his oily nose. “Ms. Delahare. Mr. Woods is a highly valued guest. Next time a VIP requests that specific service, you deliver. I expect better from you.” He grunted and opened his eyes. “No more disgruntled guests.”

Peaches sighed and reached for a blue colored candy from her dish. She made a mental note to bring up this interaction in her therapy session later that afternoon. Perhaps this was one of the many causes of her condition.