coqueliccot

[coqueliccot]

It's May and it smells of summer.

The sky dried up in a week. I slow down and let sorrow catch up to me. I count the strands of hair left on my head, I bruise my face with my nails. I am waiting for change. It never comes.

I go over the same issues I've had since I was 19. Maybe even before. And I shed the same tears. Spring always brings the same wind every year.

I wish I knew what I wanted.

But I rarely complain.

People like me are not destined for greatness. In many ways I expect to be unremarkable. And yet I carry some envy in my heart.

Envy for those who are great.

[coqueliccot]

They don't tell you how rapidly your years are consumed. How many times have you let your mind wander into foolish daydreams. Now you're gathering the remaining scraps of youth.

I regret many things. Mainly that I've thought more than I've lived.

Every missed opportunity, conversation, acquaintance. Every grain of sand from the hourglass falls on my face and buries me.

What have you done with your time ? My head deep in papers, I have seen nothing beyond the bridge of my nose. My feet mark the ground beneath me; I haven't moved in years.

If only I acted on half the things I've dreamed about. I am alive, but barely.

[coqueliccot]

My heart in your lap, your hands hurt and sooth.

The helplessness in which you drown yourself makes me forgive you.

But I see cruelty in you mother. You may have inherited it or learned it, and I fear I might catch it too.

God is good he almost lets you forget what your loved ones do to you.

And if you don't forget you understand.

[coqueliccot]

I feel like ripping off my petals.

So bitter I drown everyone else in honey.

The sweetness is nauseating. In a time when people value courage and honesty. I know neither. So pleasing while very little pleases me. If I could give back half the sourness I receive. I wouldn't be this resentful.

My god you're so infuriating I wish I could hurt you. I think I would be less angry If I could.

Am I even "good" if I dislike you this much. Know I've spared you many speeches. For all my qualities I have very little forgiveness in me.

[coqueliccot]

Please help if you're able to, even a small amount still counts.

[coqueliccot]

Summer. My skin sweats the stress straining on my bones and I scrub it away. Hot sleepless nights keep the mind awake. There is less fatigue to remedy, no cold to escape, nothing but the numbing heat.

As I settle for this monotonous easy living, the days slip by in a rush and my worries catch up to me in September.

[coqueliccot]

Dear stranger, I love the way you put you words on this lonely screen of mine

Am more than flattered you enjoy reading my ramblings. It makes sharing them purposeful instead of letting them rot in my notes app.

[coqueliccot]

April,

Light and free, I float down these streets.

I've never seen a bluer sky,

Nor greener weeds.

My mind is off so many things.

I shouldn't be at ease,

Yet where to put all this joy?

God bless this earth and all it grows

How can one bear any sorrow

When the world makes them feel so high

Beautiful spring,

How you come and heal my soul

Dust me off and cast off the gloom

Eyes leak rose water tears

And the sunlight seeps in through my pores

How beautiful life is when you're on your feet,

When you finally get to unclench your teeth.

This brightness tingles, and the sweetness lingers,

The mind dares to suggest, "what about winter ?"

Then I'll unfold my coat and my sweaters

And listen to the rain hit the pavement

Sleep hoping to wake up to snow

Burning June,

You'll be here soon

You'll burn the weeds an ashy yellow

And bleach the sky from its deeper blue

Cast a beaming ray of heat by noon

[coqueliccot]

It's a cool evening, I feel all the melancholy drain out of me when you squint your pretty eyes. I am more childish than that time I was twelve, proud to introduce you to the happiest version of myself. It's so much easier to love everyone when I love you. The kindness you drown me in is so easy to spread. I can't help but think I've done some incredibly good deed to have you. The thing I wanted most, yearned for all my life. A best friend. My own. 

[coqueliccot]

I have words behind my tongue, scratching the back of my throat, that I can neither swallow nor blurt out, from fear someone might choke. My heart is so kind, I can almost let you live. If it weren't for those nights, I felt my hands around your neck.

Fingerprints of a childish hand on every doorknob. We're intertwined like the hairs of a tight braid. We need to be washed out of our shape, that's what we need. To cure us both.

If compared to death, I'd say my loss had no grave. My loss doesn't feel like one to fate, it birthed a grotesque and ugly sadness, produces vomit and bone screeching anger. My loss was to grieve for in secret. It was undefinable and complex. It morphed, grew and matured with me like a faithful friend. It took all forms and shapes.

I'd say at first my loss was milder than death, but it never ended and for years I kept losing, and the pain only grew more piercing it was much worse than burying a man. It was living with the ghost it was talking to a corpse it was never reconciling with the thought, that I was fatherless. Because of those cursed weekly meetings where I had to kiss the cheeks of the man I despised with all I was and still am. It was to hate a man as a child, as a daughter and as a woman. It was to wish harm and ruin on my blood, then take it back. It was to sit in the backseat drying my tears, it was feeling the anguish in my throat, choking me when I tried to speak, it was the anxiety that shook my body when he spoke. It was my heart breaking again and again. It wasn't only sorrow, it was soul crushingly heavy, like my spine could yield at any moment. But it never did, and I still carry the burden, and it feels like my body is growing accustomed to the weight, building itself around it, letting it shape it, define it, leave its print all over it.

Is it cruel to envy closure of the tomb. Wishing I had buried my sorrow deep into the earth's soil. Father, if you read this would you disown me. What would it even mean. My heart couldn't wish your death, it's too late for that. Death would simply be the end of hope, brutal and abrupt, "my father died and everything is worse now". And out of spite, I hold back the words that could cut the branch from which you're hanging. If I am choking you will too, if I am sleepless you'll be too. So we're both hunted, and it's almost like "which one of us died and which one of us is grieving ?".

[coqueliccot]

Everything suits you so well, If you get every single card in the deck, how can I play ? Your hand is unbeatable. It's almost innate, this affinity you have for everything I pursue. The ease with which you glide your fingers over everything I reach for. I'm still trying to get ahead, to surpass you. In something at least. And my throat tightens when I see him turn to you and my stomach turns when I see your grades and I wanted to throw up all summer long. I'd tolerate it better if you didn't take such apparent pleasure in looking down on me. I've always noticed a lack of candor in your features. Something in your gaze or about your nose. They don't really like you here, it's true you could be nicer. But we both know you don't have to. That voice will keep charming, sugarcoating all your nasty remarks.

I know I tend to trivialize your triumphs. You're clearly made for it. It spares you any doubt. And it's all on me, people like me are miserable.

Tout te va si bien, ta main est imbattable. C'est presque inné, cette affinité que tu possèdes pour tout ce que je poursuis. Cette aisance avec laquelle tu glisses tes doigts pour t'emparer de tout ce que j'envie tant. J'essaye encore de passer devant, de te doubler. En quelque chose au moins. Sinon, je sens mon ventre se nouer comme si j'avais avalé une cuillère de plus. Je le tolèrerais mieux si tu n'éprouvais pas ce plaisir apparent à me regarder de haut. J'ai toujours discerné un manque de candeur sur tes traits. Quelque chose dans ton regard ou sur ton nez. On ne t'apprécie pas vraiment ici, tu ne cherches pas à te faire aimer.

J'ai tendance à banaliser tes triomphes. Tu es clairement faite pour. Ça t'épargne tous les doutes.

[coqueliccot]

Two steps back, I freeze the frame. This instant, this one regular day, monotone and mundane, is good enough.

[coqueliccot]

She's the sun in March, soft and gentle, stroking my face through the heavy clouds threatening to shower above my head. She rubs her kindness on me, dense and warm like a wool sweater. And I might carry some of her hairs on my shoulder. Her trembling hands in her lap, she poors honey into my ears. If she's the sun then I am spring, when she visits I grow meadows. And if she leaves, if she ever leaves, how terrifying the thought of ever losing her favor. Of her discovering some mold on me. Of cold wet snow. Of tiny blades in the early morning air. Of soaked socks and the gloomy atmosphere.

[coqueliccot]

..Et puis il y a cette solitude. L'odeur de l'air confiné d'une pièce mal chauffée, la douleur projetée, rapportée de la plaie vers le torse. L'amour qui déborde de moi, mais qui n'a nulle part où aller.

[coqueliccot]

Vain, all the tears and the prose. When I swallow back the unpolished grief that I spill. Caprice of the mind, to dwell on things for a little too long. Writing letters to strangers, spasms of the hand, while their real addressee are met with years of unjustified silence. Unresolved disputes, unreached closures, my nights are haunted by so many ghosts. I have wept abundantly, my pain was justifiable if only identified. There is no purpose to the damage, no value.

[coqueliccot]

Ma mère est furieuse, la pâte est durcie et craquelée. Elle n'absorbe plus les coups, elle fait saigner les poings. Elle est gelée, informe, un tas. Elle ne sert ni à garder les fleurs ni à servir le thé.

C'est une injure, un échec. Un jour, elle sera vendue ou offerte, mais qui en voudra. Si l'œuvre est ratée, qu'en est-il de l'artiste ? Lui qui lui a dédié sa vie.

Dans sa colère, l'artiste oublie souvent qu'il a imprégné sa pâte de cette même rage qui le brûle. Ses mêmes mains dures et rudes lui donnent cet aspect grossier.

Ma mère veut une tasse de lait. Elle n'arrive plus à me pétrir.

[coqueliccot]

September, a last bite of summer, before the frost cuts my knuckles.