life is a garden ➿ and the roots are all touching
choosing love (island)
today i woke up needing to actively choose love. freaked me out, honestly. an unfamiliar dark spot in my field of vision- a little cloudy, inconclusive. a little… dare i say… evil? i chalk it up to smoking six-ish more cigarettes than usual this weekend, blaming it on my lack of discipline. blamed it on the little goblin that lives inside of me. did i tell you? i had to choose to love this morning. how strange. how mechanical.
✷
my own voice wall-ball-brute-force-ricochets back at me: things are cyclical. we never really arrive. what do you really think about that?
i throw my own words across the room! bull-fucking-shit!
look in the mirror. my little goblin-self comes front and center, ears a little pointed.
✷
give myself a moment. pick up after myself. choose to love. get on with my day. even if it's hard. even if my ears are a little pointy.
✷
i think about the career trajectories i’ve manically half-considered: dating coach, massage therapist, acupuncturist, nun, dancer (yes, that kind), personal trainer, matchmaker, high school teacher, step-mother. labor that explores the broader question of love: what it is, how we attain it, how we maintain it.
unconsciously, i lean towards this kind of work. both of my current jobs are roles heavy in giving and care-taking, labor that hones the intuition: clay instructor, studio assistant.
the truth is, i have to choose to love everyday. we all do. love is a verb, rah rah rah. you know the quote. this morning was especially difficult, with the dark spot in my vision and all. my goblin is a little harder to satiate lately.
✷
last night i dreamt of being a love island contestant. i arrived as one of the few bisexuals. i don’t remember the logic in which this was allowed. another girl contestant insisted that it could only be one way or another: i was either gay or straight. i told her it wasn’t that way. i kept wondering if she was right, between moments our tongues would press, interlock. mouths released in little pauses, looking at each other to corroborate our existence. to make sure the Other was really real. i have no memory of any contestant other than her. i have no recollection of footage being captured or if any of it was really becoming television at all.
we had to write about ourselves on little slips with faint graphite pencil, reading off a wrinkled piece of paper for big television. falling in love a little, having to explain who i am, all for big television. i hardly remember what she looked like. the memory of the feeling clings, sticky. today, so humid, barely unbearable. just barely.
✷
real
really
other
truth
satiate
remember
evil
goblin
choose
today i woke up needing to actively choose love. freaked me out, honestly. an unfamiliar dark spot in my field of vision- a little cloudy, inconclusive. a little… dare i say… evil? i chalk it up to smoking six-ish more cigarettes than usual this weekend, blaming it on my lack of discipline. blamed it on the little goblin that lives inside of me. did i tell you? i had to choose to love this morning. how strange. how mechanical.
✷
my own voice wall-ball-brute-force-ricochets back at me: things are cyclical. we never really arrive. what do you really think about that?
i throw my own words across the room! bull-fucking-shit!
look in the mirror. my little goblin-self comes front and center, ears a little pointed.
✷
give myself a moment. pick up after myself. choose to love. get on with my day. even if it's hard. even if my ears are a little pointy.
✷
i think about the career trajectories i’ve manically half-considered: dating coach, massage therapist, acupuncturist, nun, dancer (yes, that kind), personal trainer, matchmaker, high school teacher, step-mother. labor that explores the broader question of love: what it is, how we attain it, how we maintain it.
unconsciously, i lean towards this kind of work. both of my current jobs are roles heavy in giving and care-taking, labor that hones the intuition: clay instructor, studio assistant.
the truth is, i have to choose to love everyday. we all do. love is a verb, rah rah rah. you know the quote. this morning was especially difficult, with the dark spot in my vision and all. my goblin is a little harder to satiate lately.
✷
last night i dreamt of being a love island contestant. i arrived as one of the few bisexuals. i don’t remember the logic in which this was allowed. another girl contestant insisted that it could only be one way or another: i was either gay or straight. i told her it wasn’t that way. i kept wondering if she was right, between moments our tongues would press, interlock. mouths released in little pauses, looking at each other to corroborate our existence. to make sure the Other was really real. i have no memory of any contestant other than her. i have no recollection of footage being captured or if any of it was really becoming television at all.
we had to write about ourselves on little slips with faint graphite pencil, reading off a wrinkled piece of paper for big television. falling in love a little, having to explain who i am, all for big television. i hardly remember what she looked like. the memory of the feeling clings, sticky. today, so humid, barely unbearable. just barely.
✷
real
really
other
truth
satiate
remember
evil
goblin
choose
🌾 return to “life is a garden”
last edited 8/25/25