Misery Is a Butterfly

Her body is too big, somehow incomplete -

or too complete, concrete.

Inconsequential.

Punchdrunk nights, pounding the pavement - her eyes glazed, so tired, endless fatigue...

Her feet sore, and the rim of the sky still lit with sunset -

it's pounding in her head, like her feet, the pavement

eyelids growing heavy, like the rest of her.

She's had men, and swallowed them whole.

They disappeared, mouthfuls of chocolate cake slipping and sliding down her throat.

She lived with a man, one who grasped her thighs and peeled her open - always satisfying, always leaving her longing for something else. Something more...

But maybe she doesn't deserve the right to complain,

perhaps anyone who doesn't mind, or who at least keeps quiet about

the dimples and pimples,

on her back, neck, face -

should be slept with

surrendered to

as a reward for their acceptance,

for their silence, and lack of standards.

Now,

her eyes scan the bountiful thighs and belly of a mother,

serene arms gathered around the swaddles of a bare baby.

She

should like to curl around this woman, inside her, within her cells, her DNA.

And now,

as the lean purple skinned sensation walks by, she imagines herself pressing her lips to that sweet, shaven plum, greedily licking the surface clean and feeling

her

own

power

at creating this tension with another

raising the final cry from this woman's throat

and feeling a shock within her own vagina.

A Goddess may appear, unaware of her own glory-

her own curvaceous isolation

the stretchmarks silver on her golden skin, like burnishings,

like afterthoughts -

hairs bristling wiry curls - plumbing the depths of her

with fingers - moving beneath breasts

gently prying open buttocks, burying herself

in the layers of stinks and sweats

in her stomach, feet, ears, mouth.

Yes. She may catch herself on the odd day - her reflection in the bathwater -

flickering and shy among the bubbles

that drift over her rippling abstract self.

She stands at the mirror, on an even day

and spies a beauty she fears no one else can see.

Her eyes are molasses

rapids of hair fall over

the air above a back of

vast american sky.

In her belly is seed

in her belly are others unborn

ova, breathless and brave

ebb and flow each month.

In her belly, she stores her seed.

She is finite, when she dies she'll return to the winds and waters.

But right now she is endless opportunity.

She is complete.

Of consequence.

She is fluid, and binding - the strength

of glue-like mud that holds firm the roots of redwoods

the scent of strong chedder

her numb fingers after masturbation.

She is senses and colors

danger

ugliness

But she is undeniable, absolute.

If I let her go, will she sink or swim?

If I let go -

will she be free?

Misery Is a Butterfly is the sixth album from Blonde Redhead.
It is a moody, swirling mystery of music that will both hurt your ears and break your heart.
The music pulls together in my mind, the kind of messy isolation that will shock me during something mundane, like catching the bus, or eating breakfast.
This music contains all of my teeth grinding frustration, but it's fused with the unreal that appears when I close my eyes, and the longing filled fantasy of the feelings that happen after I've seen a movie like A Single Man, or In the Mood for Love.
These are just my experiences, they are in all likeliness, irrelevant.

Blonde Redhead is Kazu Makino, and twin brothers Amedeo and Simone Pace.
Kazu is from Japan, and the twins were born in Italy. They are based in NYC.
Their sound has matured from a nice rock and headbang box of wine, to the bizarreness of kombucha gone wrong.
I'm sure one day their music will become a delicious malt vinegar splashed on chips, but for now, bask in the strange fermentation.

The piece of writing above is dedicated to all those who identify as female, and who feel the pressure to disappear as summer comes to bake together those sticky thighs, and steam those parts of ourselves that we would rather ignore.
Also, to the secret erotic in all of us.
Those craven desires we harbor that we long to share, but cannot, even with ourselves.
One day, I will celebrate my sex, celebrate myself, my form, my reflection, alone, accepting, in soapy bathwater,
but not today. Not yet.