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I’d forgotten how hard blogs are. There’s a story to tell and I keep thinking it’s about Nepal. I should be writing about Nepal. I am supposed to be writing The Nepal Story, after all. So, why can I not write about Nepal?
Dramatic sigh.
I was once told by my mentor to trust my instincts when piecing a narrative together, meaning I shouldn’t be so arrogant as to think I can manhandle an experience if I don’t let it unfold. My story hasn’t even unfolded yet. I want to write a redemption story that hasn’t happened, so it’s no wonder I can’t write about it. Truth be told, mine is probably not a redemption story anyway. Deep down, I know Nepal as a requisite transformative experience will be dark because, when reduced to its smallest divisible parts, Nepal is all in my head.
And there’s a writer in there, too, who refuses to shut the hell up.
From a distance, a shadowed mirage is waving at me like a summer heat reflection on hot pavement and this passage comes back to me:
Despite our best intentions, we forget the dead.
Do they forget us? Jane Summer, “Erebus”
So. Leigh “Bindo” Binder*, if you refuse to die, I’ll just have to kill you off in a mediocre poem that’s an apology as much as a lament.
Sleeping Beauty
When the stem drooped and the petals died,
I slept
Sleeping beauty sleep
I awoke to gold
Light too bright
You offered me a dim corner
You and I shared caramelized melancholy
Like cotton candy
Adolescent sweetness, the things that grew in our heads
Restless dreams like your cigarette smoke
From a few thousand miles away
Choke me awake
Weighed together like stone
Bound and pull down like some English great, we weren’t built for this life
But mostly: Have we lived our eternity?
*Leigh Binder was a friend and fellow writer, who died two years ago leaving only his writing and YouTube videos (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-43KL2khFHhJ-LmRqA-y2A) to haunt me.
[begin transcript]
me: How’s work tonight?
him: pretty slow
him: what u doing up
[it’s 2:02 am on a Sunday]
me: Good question. I keep waking up.
me: Are we gonna still see each other or…?
him: Yah I have to you about that but don’t want to do it over text
me: ok, not a conversation I’m looking forward to but I get what you’re saying.
him: sorry I’ve been so distant
me: I’m good at reading the writing on the wall. Let’s just leave it at that for now.
[end transcript]
[end relationship]
it was a small statement
words with a gentle punch
I’ll take the dogs out, he said
on a Sunday morning
leaving me to rest
he knew I needed to rest
on a Sunday morning
“you know what comes next,”
I say to him with a sad smile
it’s a smile I think he’ll come to know well
>>>>>>>
on my lips
a song from yesterday
words not quite audible
not quite decipherable
the melody doing the work
working the doing
working the words
slowly forming
on my lips
On Monday, happenstance occurred. Happenstance, I say, because I’m not sure I believe in fate or destiny, puzzle pieces fitting together just so. I see a yellow sticky note on my office floor. I leave it there for several hours. I have things to do. In the mid-afternoon, I pick up the note and take a look-see. I’m jolted to see it. His email, the asshole, who ruined the name Steve for me, although I never liked it anyway. The one with no affection for me. His email, who I’d finally forgotten. His email, written down a year and a half ago just in case we ever started communicating again, still waiting to be typed in my compose box.
He’s not much to me, not even painful to think about. He’s nothing. He’s an asshole. He is Steve.
He facebooked me a few months ago and I told him to never contact me again.
I’m not sure why I can’t bring myself to throw the sticky note away.
I met him at the Waffle House, which was even cooler than saying
I met him on the internet
He was cute
though for a moment as I was walking up
I wasn’t sure
He had stunning blue eyes
usually I go for brown
but he was all smiles and there was little awkwardness
I think I’d finally found my stride
not thinking twice about the fact I remembered nothing from his profile
He wore a sports jacket while I wore a slinky top
encouraging him to check out my rack—he did several times
I felt a rush of adrenaline
He kept smiling
- He says he needs soup and a good woman to take care of him. Aw.
- He says raw emotion is lame. Double aw.
- Sweet is good, he says.
- Sarcastic is good, he says.
- He shrugs his shoulders when called Pookie.
- He says we walk into his jokes like a blind man walking into an invisible tree, which makes us laugh but try not to analyze it too much because it gets confused.
- He’s not Hitler.
- He just needs to reflect a little.
- He’s willing to soul search. Awwwwwwww!
- He’s selling us in the most fun way, we adore his technique.
- He is diligently trying to decide whether to drive his truck or his car to meet us next week. He asked what our preference was.
- He’s in the motherfucking AIR FORCE!
he did what he did
but I still think of him fondly
when I opened the door
I took his breath away
something most unexpected
something so surprising
even to him
to the both of us
I’ve been inspired by many of my fellow bloggers and my precious Bunny-Love (who considers me Mother and Poetic Grin his Other Mother, for he is the logical love child of the unnatural union of Bryan and me) has generously answered my probing questions with grace and good humor.
1. There was a skit on SNL once where Will Farrell was playing Harry Carry and said, “If you were a hotdog and you were stranded on an island, would you eat yourself?” Well, would you?
It depends on the type of hotdog I would be; if I were to be any sort of alternative hotdog–turkey, soy, etc–no. Just no. However; if I happened to become, in my hotdog island isolation, a chilli dog, there would be nothing for rescuers to find. If I were to be transformed into a corndog, that would be ideal, because I can only ever eat about half of one. The taste is great, but I get sick of it easily. And really, that sounds like me.
2. Where you do get your inspiration for writing? (Also, please tell our esteemed readers where your name comes from.)
I get my inspirations from a variety of sources. The major provider is just observations I make while wandering around, watching people or animals or plants or documentaries. The second source would have to be love. Friendly, lustful, insatiable, painful, distraught, miserable, wonderful, joyful, manic, light, and especially dark, love. I get little echoes of writings from my friends, but my best work derived from love comes from relationships. There are a lot of gay themes, and gay romances explored in my writing.
In regards to my name, B.R. Belletryst, I should say that the first part was given to me by someone who will always mean a lot to me. B.R. stands for Bunny Rabbit. The name came about during a particularly verbal sexual scene in which he told me to sit and hop on his cock, and called me his cock-rabbit. It developed into a pet name, Bunny, and has since become a name I regularly associate with. The second part, Belletryst, is my own invention. It is a portmanteau, sort of. A belletrist is a writer who writes centered around aesthetics, which is something I’d like to believe I do. The latter half of this word was changed though, because of my influence from love. A tryst, as defined by The Free Dictionary, is an agreement between lovers, especially in regards to a location to meet at. This word making up so much of who I am, romantically, as well as quite a few of my dreams, seemed a natural alteration to the word belletrist.
And so with the poem “in which he wakes,” B.R. Belletryst was born. I had been operating my website before that, but it was really with that poem, and that series of events that inspired it that I became the person and poet that my dear friend MedicatedLady is interviewing today.
3. Can you tell me why I’m so obsessed with my dog poo-ing?
No; but I can offer you this–cat poop is the worst thing in the world. The worst thing in the world. Ever.
4. How did you know writing was going to be a major part of your life?
I never know that it will be. It’s just part of me. I can’t explain to you why I write, why I write what I write, and I can’t tell you, or others, to write, or how enriching it is, if it is. To give you an example of what I’m talking about, I just recently started work outside of writing, and haven’t written anything since September 28th, journaling aside. Writing is a biological function to me, natural. It is a bodily excretion, as someone once said to me. It oozes. It flows. It is important, and it is nothing. Writing is drool, is shit, is cum, is piss, is blood, is menstrual blood, is bile, is tears, is snot, is earwax. It’s slow, it’s explosive, it’s orgasmic, it’s release, it’s scary, it leaves a bad taste in your mouth, it is salty, it is gross, and it is beautiful and delicious. Writing is alchemy; primordial fluids coming together.
I don’t control when I’ll write, what I’ll write, or if I will feel like it at all. My idea about writing is that writers are and constantly become. Every day you write something, you become a writer, or tap into it, and it takes something from you, and gives you something else.
5. Ohio seems like a nice enough place. Can you give me the high points and low points of life there? Also, do people from Ohio support cows?
Ohio. There are decent theme parks and some kind of history involved, but it’s very boring. I live in Lancaster, Ohio–a small city that gets its kicks out of preserving American Civil War history. I’ve heard so much about General Sherman (even went to the middle school!) that I’ve lost a bit of respect for history. I’ve been in all the historical buildings, seen all those meticulously preserved outfits, rooms, and cannons, and the only thing I have to say about it is that it’s like keeping your dead grandfather’s toenails; creepy, unnecessary, and obsessive. But that’s just my opinion. I fully acknowledge that the Civil War and all involved were important to history, and the development of our country, but the extent to which my city revolves around it is ridiculous. In all honesty, my favorite part about Ohio is the people, and getting out of my city to go to Columbus. There’s a bit more culture, the people are more exciting, and there is always something to do.
That was a bit of a rant. Oh well, I’m planning on immigrating to Canada in years to come.
Cows, cows, cows. Nope. No support for cows whatsoever. I think that’s sort of an American thing. Or a human thing, considering Kobe Beef and cows everywhere else in the world, excluding India.
All around me, carnivorous people ripping them apart, screaming, chanting “BEEF! STEAK! JERKY! PRIME RIB! BURGER! RIBS! BARBECUE! TONGUE!”
And I hear their teeth, just gnashing,
gnashing, and holy fuck, it’s like trains
crashing, brains just like potatoes mashing,
something disturbing, but can’t look away,
teeth sinking in, tongue chewed on,
trying not to betray my senses
as I fight off winces, hunger growing,
growing, thoughts start slowing,
racing to realization, serenity or actualization
–Beef. Beef. It’s what I want. Juicy, rip it apart, consume, consume, oh gods it has consumed me, that fucking cow head, that fucking taste, give me more! MORE! I demand it!
MORE! Suddenly, meal finished,
I’m back, I abhor;
I can’t believe it was me, those actions, those … poor cows. Thoughts of meat hooks, slaughter houses, mooing, mooing, chopping, sawing, hooves flying and butchers laughing… Am I repulsed? Am I horrified? I’ll have chicken tomorrow. Or maybe… beef.
Visit Bunny’s website at http://brbelletryst.wordpress.com/
Ramblings of a Medicated Lady: Words of Woe by Loria Taylor 
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