Sitting on that see-saw between science(of fiction) and fiction(of science), switching gears, switching frames. It not only feels good, it feels right:

i. Make up (verb): to invent, to create.

ii. Make up (verb): to embellish, to enhance.

iii. Make up (verb): to reconcile, put together again, to re-member.

iv. Make-up (noun): components, elements, constituents

To learn is to make up…?

I think of the language games young children so delight in when learning to read and write. The type we find cute for a time, before we decide to talk such nonsense out of them, so they learn to do it right. Pity. It is precisely this type of play that is characteristic of one of my favourite writers. She makes up. And I, now adult –  head full of jargon I’m constantly questioning –  listen, admire and learn:

i want to live without words

call him pink torpedo

he imagined himself & he was lady dagger lizard lobster apple-headed melon baster x-rated cannon supreme
& he loved the gutted hamster
& he wore the velvet glove

i want to live where everyone is alive
i want to live where there are so many people, where night trembles, where busy streets fall away as we move closer
I DON’T CARE WHO YOU ARE
i want to live where we lose it, off our faces in some garden, climbing to a place where none are more silent than us
i want dumb flesh to speak louder
i want that cunny-catcher bending light over the twisted sheets
i want you muffled and incoherent beside me
i want to live where nothing dies

DON’T TALK TO ME
I DON’T CARE

i imagined you & you were lady dagger lizard lobster apple-headed melon baster x-rated
bed in my room
& you shed old skin
& you wished new lies
& you kissed hot tears
& i do i do
i kiss the moving closer
where bad days bleed on the sheets
where bad dreams bleed from these my arms, these my fingers, these my eyes
where good days cling damp to the skin
where good dreams spread on the mattress
where good days cling damp to the skin under soft & ridiculous lips
& i feed my eyes
& i wish vodka morning
& i kiss the colour of laughter

I DON’T CARE WHERE YOU ARE
& i don’t care why you are, i just want to go too far. i just want to get in your head & show you what goes unsaid

(from Ornamental Vagina, by Penny Goring)

Speaks to the child in me. The scientist in me. The artist in me. The woman in me. The me in the tree. It looks good from up here. I do and I do and I don’t care either. Cos sometimes we think so hard we think ourselves into the wrong places. Let go. Fly.