Sorry About the Tongue
Darling,
I must decline your invitation to breakfast, though I’d like to come (especially if such an event is a prelude to my touching you until you cannot feel, and then speaking to you softly until you feel again, as so many of our events are, darling).
But I really can’t; I’m sorry, I really can’t see you. I can’t even talk right now, see, here, I’m buried beneath the alphabet, and my voice is coming out all muffled: Mmmph! Ngh!
When I resurface, darling, I’ll be hungry as an ox. I’ll need food and sex in portions as big as they come. I want beer, darling — beer, red 40, and something goopy. Not in viscosity, you foolish thing — in texture, on the Paltrow scale. Something with a triangular title, packed with -ics, -ocs, and Ys. You know what I mean, darling: a jade egg, a ski to the neck, something to make my face pig-pink and itchy.
I’ve also, well, I’ve been feeling a bit sick, darling. Phlegm-full. Achy. I must tell you: I’ve engaged another’s wet tongue. It was the only cure! You see, it wasn’t wet with saliva, but a cold, herbal concoction. Miami Mint, Lush Ice, I can’t recall. Darling, it was not even returned to the mouth before being laid flat against my skin. Nothing was muscled or flicked, just furled and then un- (let’s not discuss it. Or, another time, yes).
Oh! I’ve had a dream, darling. A marvelous dream. You could swim! Speak! Shuffle! All the things you struggle with so in waking life. How I wish you were a fish, darling! A poker-playing, Spanish-speaking fish. Imagine all the R you would put in my name! My!
Not in the ocean, darling. How will I feed you flakes in the ocean? How will I watch them thoop, thoop, thoop, past those gorgeous lips? You will live in a tank, darling, and I will get you all the bright plastic plants and shiny rocks you need. I won’t touch you at all then; it wouldn’t be good for your skin. But I will speak to you softly with the harshest of words. And you will say thank you, as only you do. It will sound different. Like bubbles.
I’ve remembered something a young lady said to me! A very wise young lady named Lyla Clare McAdams, darling. She said, “Fish sometimes allow their instincts to lead them, but not often. Often, what leads them is neurotic overthinking.” Just hmm and nod. Does that not sound like you, darling?
You have so many names, so many, darling, and only one singular temperament. Steady and sweet and steadily sweet. Such a demeanor could only get better if you were a fish. Consider it, darling.
I’m sorry about the tongue.
E.
Whatever Shall We Do With That?
Darling,
This book I’m writing is the shittiest thing! You’d love it, darling. A total riot. I use the word “little” thrice each page. It’s like I know nothing at all! Or at least very little. But, darling, let’s talk about something else entirely; my word choice is always so dull a conversation topic.
I have a friend, a millennial, darling, who cannot figure out how to use the word “mog.” She’ll say, “I mogged over her,” or “I mogged at them.” I say, Malaika, you mog someone as you mug them. It’s a transitive verb; it needs no preposition. But she just sits there and mogs about, mogs off, mogs besides.
Don’t go looking up the etymology of the word, darling; I may lose you to such a hole.
I’ve been too judgmental, really. I’m loathsome with the language, darling. An abuser, a misuser. Do you know what two words I can never spell? License and alcohol. I’m terrible with C’s; I have no clue where they go, darling. I’m from a landlocked state, you know, a place with many alcohol-license issues. Darling, I was born a lizard and only recently molted into this lumpy woman. It’s a miracle I made it across the road.
I’m putting it off. Another thing I must confess to, darling, in the Upper Peninsula: I shot a gun. And you thought- I thought- I stopped at loads! I hated it, darling. Afterward I was shaking so hard, I couldn’t stay on my feet. I collapsed into a pink camping chair and dug a stick in the dirt. Did some handstands with my earplugs in.
My friend and dear coworker, Grace, was different, darling; she practically wanted her shoulder knocked off. There was foam gathering at the edges of her blue mouth. She was a straight shooter, too, unsurprisingly. When she was done, darling, she rolled that Jolly Rancher to the other side of her mouth, turned to our host, and said, “Sorry about your target.” I, a tigress myself, was mogged, darling. Mogged.
So other people love it. Shooting guns. Darling, I cannot imagine why. I suppose other people don’t have this raw power in their empty hands. Other people need things to hold.
It’s a transitive verb, too, “to shoot.” Shooting over or around would mean something else entirely, darling. “At” or “through” might do the trick, though they suggest things about one’s aim. The etymology of the word, I’ve learned, its evolution, darling, is closely related to that of the word “choose.”
Whatever shall we do with that?
E.
