☀ Today's Poem: "Epidermal Ripple Pools" Violet Spurlock

We debate about my tiny titties.
    — You think they are getting bigger,
    — I think they are getting smaller.
• Predictable
    — You say that I don't see myself
    — From the side.
• See, that's an argument.
    — You may offer me sensory details
    — About how you view my profile
    — But I process it as evidence
• (Against my perspective)
    — For which I am grateful.

You tell me a fairy tale.
A man wins and loses the love of a fairy.
A range of voices, images, explanations.
The central object is bread.
The central action is violence.
We don't have to go too deep into analysis
Because the surface is so rich. I smile
Because I'm noting our difference
And it is so beautiful.
Your story is completely compelling,
Generous in delivering pleasure,
Enough for anyone to fall in love.

I write a story which is really a record of my own belief.
My friend says it leaves the reader little to chew,
The thoughts are so highly processed
That sensory details and experiences
Have already been refined into conclusions.
I offer that it is apt for the writing to appear
More as essay than as narrative, because I often live
My life more as essay than as narrative.

My friend says well, I wasn't gonna say it.
My story is a lonely meditation,
Mirroring the paucity of the reader's life,
A salve for the heartsick.

    — You say you can't write in the form of a project.
        — I say I can't write good descriptions.
• We like each other's writing.

I read a friend's book and it contains images.
        — The images are clearly allegorical, and I discern
• From the passages featuring direct argument
• (And my conversations with the friend)
    — That the images refer to ideas I am
• Interested in expressing,
• Compelled to express.
    — I like my mode of expressing ideas
    — And I like their mode of expressing images.
• An imagined collaboration emerges as a solution.
    — I think, if only someone could offer me images.
• Readymade, please. Ethically sourced, if possible.

I know you think that the world is full of images,
That inspiration is waiting outside my window,
And you're right, but you're wrong.

An image is a highly processed abstraction.
Its function is to help you forget about abstraction.
How is it made? We are forbidden to say.

In this poem I am avoiding the use of images.

Are my titties an image?
Perhaps for you.

And am I forced to follow my logic here,
To admit that my titties are, to me,
An argument, an idea, a concept?

Perhaps.
My titties certainly have a spectral existence.
If I describe them to you, I am both extending
And negating the imagined space that they fill.

My titties are under consideration now.

If my titties develop further,
    — It will be due to what we call conscious choice.
    — This fact,
• Which cannot be perceived by
• Assessing the physical qualities of titties,
    — Would seem to give my developed
    — Titties a sort of special status.
• Chosen titties.
Would we mystify this fact by describing the tittles?

I began by thinking about the words that I needed
But could not give myself.
    — One of those words was titties.
    — If this word denotes an image,
• And this image is supposed
• To emanate from my body,
    — Then my body, to be described thusly,
    — Has a responsibility to correspond
    — To the word which describes it.
    — That is why the word,
• If it is an image,
    — Is used.
    — This is the conditionality of description.
• This is what I cannot bear.
• This is the only way I exist.

I recall asking a friend about her sex life.
She said, well, my pussy doesn't quite get hard these days.
    — It is important that we extrapolate no fact
    — About her body from this word.
• It is inevitable that we will extrapolate.
• If you love description, you will probably extrapolate images.
• Hopefully you know how to do so lovingly, generously.
I love my friend's pussy because it sang to me of a hidden power.
• I am not talking about my friend's body.
• We spoke on the phone.
I love my friend's pussy because a word was made different in response to a need.
    — The word, pussy, fit as naturally into the sentence as any other.
• The sentence described a change in the quality of an entity over time.
• The sentence reformulated the shape of an image.
    — But the sentence saved me because
    — It articulated a form of life.
    — A life in which the words we use are the words we need.
I love my friend's pussy because I cannot speak its name without getting free.