On the Occasion of Supernal Weather
Los Angeles, August 3, 2014
Something presses the base of my scalp, in the knobs of spine, the backs of knees, puffy flesh of lips, time-etched tops of waiting hands. A dank clay flavored ghost hugs the room. Banished are the brilliant beams of blazing white heat from a Pacific-tainted sun, replaced by a crisp gray topaz that turns everything lush, like Mother Nature cranked up the saturation dial.
This day in August is an anomaly. The atmosphere mimics Santa Ana devils, but void wind. Surreal, electric, molecules are bumping around, things are buzzing and foreboding. This holds import. This deviation from the norm is a sign. The weather is shifting and so am I.
This is germ weather. Earthquake weather. Skipping record weather. Breakup weather. Cool bath weather. Window-silling weather. Navel gazing weather. Sunken bed weather. Pardon weather. Worried cat weather. Buttery bones weather. Weak knee weather. No sleep weather. Breech weather. Banana slush weather. Beach burial weather. Withering petal weather. Apocalyptic weather. Jungle war weather. Siesta weather. Canoe haze weather. Sweating glass weather. Restless baby weather. Top sheet weather. Sprawling limb weather. Hormone churning weather. Conception weather. Ex-love weather. Ouija weather. Mysterious bruise weather. Unfinished chess weather. Eyelid kiss weather. Muted photosynthesis weather. Sullen cloud weather. Sleeping bag weather. Sciatic salve weather. Tangled hammock weather. Shark sex weather. 5150 weather. Moist desk weather. Doe eye weather. Unfurling sprout weather. Talking wall weather. Warm vinyl weather. Loose handcuff weather. Sweating glass weather. Lost pearl weather. Dripped paint weather. Half cigarette weather. Ghost summons weather.
This weather is a mysterious bullet point. She makes me mourn those magical moments of childhood and teenhood and young motherhood, beacuse they are slipping through my fingers. Markers– like finding I was pregnant with my son, holding an EPT stick in a pink tiled bathroom, alone. Eating strawberry ice cream in Oakland with my father before I feared him. Making love for the first time on a dingy oriental rug while bad television played in the background.
Her alphabet is swimming, primordial and urgent. She is an elegant vamp draped over today. She swallows me. She doles memories. She carves flashbacks. She shapes my deathbed scenes. She houses magical moments had and to be. She nourishes imagery. She beckons me to behave in unfamiliar and poetic ways. And if I had no regrets before, she will show me that I do. And if I thought hope was lost, she ropes it back in. She urges me to recall– everything I can never have back.
Caroll Sun Yang holds her BFA in Fine Art from Art Center College of Design, an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University and is a certified Psychosocial Rehabilitation Specialist. Her work appears in The Nervous Breakdown, MUTHA Magazine, The Los Angeles Review of Books, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Necessary Fiction, Identity Theory, Word Riot, and others. She spends hours hunched over her unborn debut collection while writeressin’ and matriarchin’ in Eagle Rock, Ca. She can never have enough personality-disordered friends/ lo-fi anything/ human touch/ sarcasm/ cellular filters/ art films featuring teens/ Latrinalia/ frosting flowers/ bio changes. She spews forth as Caroll Sun Yang on Facebook.
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