On one arm I have the word gentle tattooed, on the back of my right arm, just above my elbow. The word gentle is hidden from the front. It’s hidden in the cold months by layers of thermals and a coat. It resided in gentle silence. Sometimes I forget it is there. Gentle. Imprinted onto my skin. So delicate. Gentle. I have always been a gentle girl.
Still now, it must be at least a year later, I ask myself why did I get the word gentle? I ask myself this not because I regret getting the word gentle. In fact I adore it. I adore how she wrote it with such elegance. Gentle elegance. I remember her saying it is really rather quite gentle isn’t it. Gentle. Gentle. Why did I choose the word gentle I ask myself. What made me out of all the words I could have chosen, deciphered, picked, isolated that one word: gentle.
wearing my red ballet flats was a religion last summer. they were one of the only pairs of shoes I would wear. Now they have no grip and each time I wear them I slip about. I wore them on the beach to the forests. A photo: red ballet flats, taken in the mouth of natures secret groves.
Is it my preoccupation with the gentleness of existence. I have the ability to see the gentleness in everything. The first time and the only time (so far) I saw a real doe it was road kill lying stretched out on the side of the road. All the time driving through the summers forests, the light shining through the trees, shards piercing down through onto the road, a flickering sensation of light and dark, with the windows open, jazz playing (specifically this playlist: scarf tied around my head, sun in my eyes and I tell you its summer, its a sweet summer), I kept saying to my father, I wish we’d see a deer running in the fields. Only we didn’t see it running in the fields, we passed it slowly, too late to see it dance through the fields.
taken from my journal.
My first doe. Roadkill. Yet I still saw the gentleness in it. I saw the poetry of this gore on the side of the road, I used to write thinking back on that day. I think gore now is too harsh because there was no gore, no blood, no shimmer on the bumpy surface of the road. It was seemingly sleeping- that is what people tell their young children isn’t it- no sweet one, the doe is only sleeping on the side of the road and will wake soon to the field of bluebells. Now I say gore was a harsh way to describe it. But the meaning is there- my first doe and I wanted to weep at the poetry of the gore on the side of the road. I wanted to weep because I could still see the gentleness of the doe. I could still see its elegance. I wanted to weep because all I could think was how nice it was to see the field of bluebells before it closed its gentle doe eyes. How wrong I felt! How horrid I felt! To not mourn this sweet doe how I should have. Only in my head kept saying, I can still see the poetry in this. I can still see the gentleness in this dead doe on the side of the road. My first doe. Roadkill. I can find the gentleness in the gore on the side of the road.
taken in a small museum within the forest. My father brought us each water. I stared into the dark eyes of this stag and thought: where did you once run?
The gentleness of last summer still sits fermenting in my stomach. I can taste it sometimes. Sometimes I think I’ll vomit it up and it will come out in fresh fruit from the farm shop, almond milk and desires. They’ll be a fly or two that I swallowed while on my bike. I hope that never happens I wish to keep last summer inside of me. That gentle summer where I catch the sun looking through my curtains each morning. That gentle summer of eating little spoonfuls of honey because I cannot simply get enough of honey. I adore honey. Little spoons of honey down my throat. Taking honey with me in little pots, buying figs fresh from the market and sitting by the stream eating them. Opening the fig like a crystal and dipping one half in the honey while the other soaked in the sun. That gentle sun.
a photo taken by my father of me between the trees.
That gentle summer where someone told me they liked my tattoo. gentle. Why did I choose the word gentle? I wonder if I will ever know. Is it my preoccupation with being able to find the gentleness in everything? In seeing the calligraphy of the trees spilled down onto the ground. What is it that fascinates me with gentleness? That one word gentle comes most of my tongue. My tongue loves the taste of the word. It tastes of honey mulberries. It tastes of espresso drunk out of yellow cups. Of a scarf tied around my head and shading my eyes from the flickering of the sun. It has notes of salt- salt from the tears I wanted to weep for my first doe.
espresso in a yellow cup.
