we spent nights driving back to that little house. and the fog, well, it came home with us. creeping steady off the wet grass embankments. pulling ghost moves round the wheel wells and gently assaulting the edges of windshield. every single night we drove home, i buried my hand further into the pocket of his trousers. hoping to find a loose thread. unstitch his heart and sew it neatly against mine.
if i wasn't wearing heels i'd volunteer to open the big wooden cattle gate on the dirt road. and if it was too cold, he wouldn't let me. i watched the shoulder blades under his sweater get illuminated in headlights and think to myself, "for every inch your muscles move, i love you".
so we'd unpack the car of all the little things collected over the day, whether it was umbrellas or new ten eyelet boots or the few remaining cookies we bought at the gas station and ate half of on the way back. big heavy solar systems examined the unruly cowlicks on top our heads. blessed us. star crossed. checked their horoscope in the patterns our hair grew.
he'd slide the skeleton key into its lock body and pressed open the french door ribs of that little cottage. that place breathed warmth. it felt like bath water and blankets. i could have spent years in the seconds of every 1 AM entry we made there.
but it always ended the same. two books. pages halfheartedly read. then all together abandoned the second i leaned over to kiss the crook of his left arm.
we spent nights driving back to that little house. the one with the big cattle gate that made husbands out men. on the last day, on the way to Heathrow airport, i unfastened a little string from the inseam of his pocket. and for every inch his muscles moved under the wool of that cardigan, i will forever say yes.
i saw kevin spacey eating lunch by himself when i was 19. he was at the counter, quietly masticating a sandwich. staring into the row of coffee pots and juicers and ice machines across from him. he looked all shades of khaki and plastic bag white. something about how nicely his hair was combed made me feel so sad. every single soft brown strand was well mannered and perfectly still in fear of breaking his heart. he looked so delicate in that diner off gower. crowded and loud with silverware and couples and their friends' nit-picky orders. i used to go to that diner once a week. sit in a little terracotta leather booth. a cup of soup and two slices of sourdough toast. leave sketches on the napkins and good tips. but i'd always gone at night, when the lighting was forgiving on the ugly sandstone rock walls from the 70s. everything looked bathed in night lights from your childhood. but that day i saw kevin spacey, it was noon. and he was sitting at the bar stool that had been bleached over and over again by this exact time of day. that whole fucking place was iridescent. but he, he was daytime neon. the back of his shirt looked combustible with sunlight. i could see through the tops of his ears. tiny nervous pink veins exposed in their cartilage. trying to hurry up blood cells. ushering each along like panicked elementary school teachers after an earthquake. i could tell his brain was so damn smart. he vital organs were over achievers. an ex boyfriend had told me some story about a friend of his who was a limo driver. how kevin spacey had propositioned this limo driver to go to hawaii with him on the car ride to LAX. i watched his soft set eyes blink slowly in unison with each rotation of his jaw. this man takes trips to oahu by himself. he eats lunch at noon. not breakfast like everyone else. his pants are ironed. he is an operating bundle of brilliant little wires. and by every inch of the phrase, he exists very much alone. even though i'd arrived long after he'd been served, i still managed to pay the check and leave before him. i had to pass behind him on my way out through the slick corridor of greased tile between the counter and the occupied tables. and when i got to that space where his back was emitting solar flares, it took every bit of will power to not wrap my arms around those starched and pressed shoulders.
kevin spacey. may every vacation you take be to hawaii.
may you parasail.
may you get lei-ed the second you step off the plane.
the leaves under your feet, they are blessed. they have souls. they pale in comparison to the ones in spring. burnt out on chlorophyll. cut off all ties with the trees. committing slow wafting suicides. one or two every few minutes. your front lawn is littered with waining photosynthesis. dew draws wet chalk outlines around each. A paper thin body. pierced through the heart by blades of grass. shops start selling amber colored candles around this time of year to recreate the smell of september death in people's living room. women read books in bathroom funeral parlors. salons and spas are setting faux forests on fire. each wick lit mourns the loss of carbon dioxide. if only they knew.
every leaf under the soles of your little black shoes has bent in half to carry you. and their ghosts escape with crooked little sounds.
and come summer, they will haunt the shit out of your picnic.
My flatmate fixes up old bicycles and had this girl's bike from the early 1930s in the garage. It's got such a neat little spirit about it, with the brown yarn around the wheels keeping it's rider's skirt from getting caught in the spokes. I asked if we could put a little basket on it for Bear Bear. Since the very first day i took bear bear out, he's loved it. Sticks his little nose deep into the city atmosphere and breathes it all in. on longer rides he curls up and takes a nap, his haunches all sunlit and warm. It's been raining here this past week but today showed up all gorgeous and bright. so jonathan stopped by and we rode the bike down to el pollo loco for chicken carnitas and diet coke with lime and extra ice. the whole trip home bear bear went between licking the smell of mexican food off the plastic bag and lapping up soda that bubbled out at every tree root lifted sidewalk bump.
i love my hood-ass-neighborhood on days like these xo the little bukowski
i can hear you in the other room, a country away. reading books from the podium of your chest. your neck, swan bent. oh to be that empty hollow c-shaped space that starts under your chin and ends at that miniature bird bath beneath your throat. each time you turn a page, currents of air rush into that place. i can hear every single particle. they sound like wine glass crystal being clinked at weddings. for every one that reaches your adams apple, a toast. so when you are there in your bed, with the second story window and dove gray sky, know that i'm just in the next room...a country away. xo the little bukowski
you want to find love? it's in books you'll never read. it's chapter after chapter of text gone unauthored. love exists in stars long after they've burnt out but carry on lighting up. big black oscillating constellations with their hinges rusting. sending them into orbit a little askew. of center. heavy doors left for opening by lightweights. when i was five i followed my mom into a public restroom with one of those doors. it was a weathered shade of mint green. and i tried to do what polite adults do and hold it open for the lady behind us. but i grasped it at the wrong edge, at the gap that opens between the frame before it swings shut. and it snapped closed on my tiny pink painted fingernails and broke two at their joints. my mom propped that gigantic jerry rigged fucker open with one hand and with the other slid me out away from it across the bathroom tile. i remember that marbled brown tile, millimeters away from my face. only separated by a thin layer of tears. and i remember leaving it. being lifted and set on the sink counter and my bent fingers held beneath a running tap while some ladies stopped to offer help and others just kept on peeing.
that's love. holding open doors. trying to make life easier for someone even if you don't know how to do it right. that's where love begins. xo the little bukowski
I am...
a Los Angeles based artist and writer with a chihuahua for an accomplice. .
THE LITTLE BUKOWSKI TUMBLR
"Nikki is the quiet storm, a true observer who can capture the essence of a moment in a powerful manner. Her writing is the full force of fancy woman blood. Her blog reveals what many women have been trying to say all this time."
