Gonna wrap this real quick
Hi. I am alive. Not in the euphoric sense, but in the existence sense. This is about Phoebe Bridgers. Broadly speaking. Not really.
Gif via VHS positive on Tumblr
Motion Sickness is a surprisingly delightful song. So is cleaning the house when you are sick in your head with worry. Holding the broom. Whoosh whoosh. No, that’s not the sound my broom makes. That’s the sound the neighboring apartment’s watchman makes when he is cleaning the space in front of the gate. And also the sound made by the women who sweep the streets, some of them refusing to wear gloves, masks, shoes, giving a non committal shrug when asked why.
You know how Motion Sickness (the song) begins?
“I hate you for what you did
And I miss you like a little kid”
You know how motion sickness (the sickness) begins?
The body is unable to adjust to the dichotomy of movement. How am I still yet in motion? Unmoved yet moving? The body is confused. And so the stomach lurches. And an unease grabs you by the throat, pushing its way down to your bowels, attempting to create a movement from the inside to match the movement outside, but the movements down align, because harmony was never the body’s strongest suit because if it was, you would commit to hating him with all your heart rather than missing him with the intensity of the moon wanting to make tides out of the ocean. It is indeed a sickness.
What I was talking about is the broom. How it gathers dust and gathers it in a neat row to be duly shifted onto the pan and brushed, gently, into the bin. Something about the uncomplicated nature of it. Rhythmic. Like knowing the sun will rise. Or the clock, no matter how broken, is right twice a day. It makes sense, and some days, that is a lot to ask for. All the Tarot readers attempt to deliver on that promise. To turn the questions into agreeable companions to dance with. In 24 hours. In 48 hours. In a week. In a month. Love will arrive. Your dreams will sleep with you. The Fates are actually pleasuring you. Your spirits, guides, ancestors. The signs. The numbers. There is meaning to everything. You aren’t lost in a labyrinth. We are Ariadne. We see better than you. This is a poem, and you are the unexpected line breaks, and it all makes sense once you lean into the grammar of it. Yeah, well. All around me everything is in motion. The Universe is conspiring motion. I am moored to the moment. It is indeed motion sickness.
Speaking of, I am going through the motions of everyday. Some days constipated. Some days bursting with diarrheaic exaltations of just how much everything is a shitshow. Asad wrote, “Gods were created when Scorpios truly loved someone.” My gods are out to fuck me and I am slowly moving towards atheism.
It is truly a sickening motion.