Crescendo of Days (prose)

''February is a hug, a kiss, a flashing red light that signals a stop.''

Dearest Victorians,

I hope you are well. This post is not part of the new schedule nor my typical content, but I promised we'd be seeing each other frequently! February is, curiously enough (thanks to Valentine's Day), one of my favorite months. I mean, the weather becomes so unhinged here in California (there’s heavy wind and flooding everywhere) that most days it’s impossible to take a tour around the park, let alone drive, but luckily, this drove me (pun intended) to journal all month, and I’ve decided to share my favorite revised entries.

Do tell me in the comments how the weather’s been where you are, and if you have a journal entry or poem you’d like to share, I’d be most pleased!

---

Feb 2

1. There is a tenderness in the subtlety between morning and noon. The final 30-minute gap seamlessly binds them, lifting the sun a few inches higher. How I adore winter and the enduring trees—fresh pine and oak, a hissing fireplace—its aroma drifting beneath my bedroom door. It is February and freezing! Ants have moved in, and soon my bedroom will no longer be mine. What germs do their tiny bodies carry that mine do not? Even still, how infuriating! But at least the turmeric I drink every morning is fresh, the new mattress is gradually taking shape, and my health has improved.

2. The snow is slowly seeping through the earth, and march promises rainbows and Chopin! Surely, by then, they would have heard my calls. There will be no more ghost stories; however, the one about the woman and the fig tree sends yearning down my spine. February is a hug, a kiss, a flashing red light that signals a stop. It comforts and controls, tricking you into believing this is all there is. But then you make it to the other side: “What a gullible thing you are,” says March. “The rainbows and music are here!”

Feb 4

Don't dare tumble over me as great and vast as you are. There is a thin line between the two of us, and you’re enduring as much as the human eye can perceive in the dark. Like a tampered sea, invisible whitecaps push against you in fury, sounding off like a car while birds that were once free burrow holes underground. You bring air to my lungs, thus I am not against you. But what happens to my side if you fall? I suspect you'd reverberate throughout the entire block, inflicting harm on anything mounted. O sirens blare! It has happened to someone else.

Feb 5

I've always struggled to understand my place in people's lives—I kept wondering where I fit in, where I was wanted, and where I wasn't. I wanted a friendship that was innocent yet passionate, sapphic even, but devoid of lechery. I craved sisterhood so vehemently that I considered joining a convent, but I'd grown to believe God created like-minded females all over the world and that, as a result, I didn’t need to go to such lengths to find her or for her to find me.

Feb 12 - Letter to Tito

What a torturous thrill!—the shrills of your mother. There is no grief without love, no love without grief—a haunting but healing hymn. Feed from my hands like a tall child, uncle, and may your strength be renewed! How confident I was, like a doctor. How sweetly you smiled as illness ravaged your body—those long, delicate fingers fit for ivories. The Lord has lit His porch light for you. How faithfully you’ll live among the angels!

1. Tito: ‘‘Uncle’’ in Tagalog

Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam

Feb 14

I’m not sure who I’m speaking to when I write. Few people read my newsletter, and this diary will never be read unless I become a prodigy who commits suicide. However, I'm learning that no response is a response, and I'm confident of why I write: I write to seduce myself. Pen, paper, and I are seriously committed! In spirit, I write to unite with women who feel rejected as I do, to haunt, and to heal. Writing comes only half naturally to me, which I believe is what distinguishes my devotion. You see, poetry (and music) are the languages of my soul. My heart is brimming with their dialect and boundless expression. What emanates from the soul cannot be denied!

Feb 15

Deliver me, Jesus, from the desire to be approved… Every day I am brave, but for what? To give it to God when God does jack shit! To pray as if my fate depends on it, because it does? Deliver me, Jesus, from the desire to be approved, loved, worshipped, and praised. This Lenten season, I ask You, Lord, to guide me through this holy mission, to keep my abstention from worldly things. I want to need You more than I want the rest of the world, and to feel mighty in Your image, in Jesus’ name.

Feb 26

I stand before the Eucharist, head bowed in prayer, full of worldly nostalgia but on fire for God. He speaks, not openly, but in my spirit: Taketh my body, O thee of faltering faith. Bear the revelation of my word, this pas de deux to which thou commend thy spirit. Place thy faith in me; cling to my light, for only I can give thee perfect peace. The priest, or maybe God, looks closely at me. I surrender my armor of fear and pride. At last, I ate the Divine.

---

That’s all for now, Victorians! Thank you for reading, and do share your thoughts and writings in the comment section below. I’ll see you all next Monday for issue 5 of Musical Mondays! I hope your February concluded wonderfully! (PS: It’s almost spring, yay!)

- Victorian Voices, Somiah Nettles xx