God, Dali, Me

Between the spiritual and the surreal, there is only skin

GOD (Sacre Coeur - 11am)

I find myself playing the catholic a lot. Heavy with guilt, single tear rolling down a cheek. I’m sat in the Sacre Coeur on Sunday, burning, listening wordlessly without understanding, infiltrating like a devil. I have no prayers but begs. I’m telling myself to shut up over and over. I paid €2 to light a candle for a second to close my eyes and try to cry one swift weep, playing the mourner, playing the devotee. But it’s all about me.

I’m pleading, I’m asking for more, I got on my knees just to see if I’d feel something – isn’t that funny, isn’t that familiar. I spent the whole service unpicking 6-month stale messages, drafting repentances that he’ll never ask for, bowing when the priest walks past, crossing my chest like I saw in the films, picking the skin from the side of my thumb, and thinking about him and her and me and him. I was thinking, maybe the only thing above is love and the deadly sins are merely states. I’m desperate, I’m cruel, I’m confused, I’m craving. I’m worshipping everyone I meet like false idols and looking for a way to streamline. I could love god if he gave me only a little. I could love god if he spoke to me. I could love god if he took me out and texted well and kissed me after saying he shouldn’t and I could still love him if he was mean and thoughtlessly punishing because no one can be omnipotent, benevolent and omniscient, it’s okay.

I’m a perfect candidate for devotion but I’m sat here, thinking of mortals and mostly of myself. I zoned out God, I’m sorry, talk to me.

I was wondering, what’s the point but then I walked outside and saw two people kiss hard and I thought, that. I’m still chewing the body, craving for the blood, guilty for not understanding, but so desperate to try.

DALI (Salvador Dali Museum, 1pm)

Maybe things aren’t supposed to be so serious.

Maybe time is mush, and I should go limp.

Maybe things come back.

Maybe things are fake, illusionary and maybe delusion is a birth right, the only way even.

It’s fine to lie to the priest, tell him that I’m catholic to try that wafer. It’s fine to think of me in church because I’m really all there is. My earth spins on my point. No one’s ever truly met anyone, I heard, we only meet out interpretation of them. I’m painting everyone Yves Klein blue, beautiful and deep, or devil’s red. I’m peachy pink and green eyes. I’m scribbling him out now. I’m in extended conversation with the idea of that, the idea I made of him that he would love but right now I hate and I’ll never share.

I’m paying €6 for a photobooth, hating the photos, but comforting myself with derealisation. I’ve never seen myself. Surely I’m someone totally different in their eyes. I’m not the one to pass comment, and perhaps I simply am not there, walking through Montmartre unnoticed, spying in the windows of holidays. I think I’m Venus With Drawers, full of junk and hoarding more. I’m a rolodex of opinions building up into a card tower world. I’m considering surrealism in the café, going soft and falling off the chair like a clock crying red wine onto wicker seated trees. I’m Picasso faces and Dali limbs, all a mess of eyes and scents and loose memories, melding my perception with theirs and likely never seeing the truth. So maybe it just shouldn’t matter. Maybe things aren’t supposed to be so serious.

ME (Le B’Art, 2pm)

A woman just came up to me in the café and said, “Would you like me to send you this photo I took of you? Sorry if that’s weird, I was walking behind you and noticed you look so much like my daughter. When I saw you here, I had to take a picture. Put your hands like that again.” She takes another of my two hands, holding my pen, writing. She told me, “I solo travelled to Paris when I was your age and never left.” She asked me, “how’re you finding it?” She wished me a good time and left and I felt blissed with the world until I looked at it.

What a thing to care about right now. Nancy said I look like a philosopher at work. I know if I saw a picture of the woman’s daughter, I’d think she was beautiful. When have I ever not? When have I ever noticed a soft jaw or a nose and not brimmed with admiration for faces and humans, in the grand and interesting whole? I don’t know why I’m thinking so much of it.

I saw a world wonder built brick by brick for worship, painted in gold and tiled with each stone a proclamation of utter devotion for something bigger. I saw the pencil marks of a genius hand, the inside of a brain laid out in wax and bronze, melding the world with its images into a whole new one. In between the spiritual and the surreal, it seems there’s just skin. There’s the earthly challenge to try, or the desire to try, and figure out outlines and find meaning in that. Sometimes I think I’d be a better writer, a bigger writer, if I was beautiful as if every word is a portrait. I’d be better if I was smaller, if I was a man, if I was old, if I was young. I’m grasping in year 25, trying to tie the links between me and me, figure out the knot and finally be through with the topic.

I want to know how I look like so I can think less about it. I want to call that woman back and interrogate her on the stranger of myself. What did you think? Feel? How do I look, how do I seem, what did you assume, why. I want her to describe me in intricate and intense detail. I want to ask her if I’m beautiful, but another stranger yesterday said I was so do I let that rest? I want to take a consensus but that’s so embarrassing to admit. That is all so embarrassing to admit that after heavens and art, I’m landing on vanity. But I want to know so I can stop wondering and spend my time writing about God or Dali instead of me, as if it isn’t all me, as if I’m not holding the pen.