You know how every once in a while you come across something so beautiful that you feel so many emotions about it that you just have to go ahead and write about it? The beauty of something stirs you into creation, into composition.
The song Quit Playing Cool by Vlad Holiday as sent to me by my parabatai did that for us, for both of us. And we both wrote things, that turned out to be wildly different from each other, and yet relating to the same emotions of longing and yearning.
I’d thought of writing a page for every verse in the song. But lo, that didn’t work out and here we have only one page, with seemingly abstract terms and phrases and emotions.
This again catalysed a realisation. We just write what we’re feeling inside of our hearts. When we’re hurt, then even if we were to sit to write about love, we’d end up rhyming of heartbreak and ache. When in love, even death feels poetic. It’s not the content of the topic at hand that makes us feel, but the emotions stirring inside of us. All my writing from a specific phase of a hyperfixation on a person or policy resembles each other, even when dealing with a variety of topics. Yeah.
Another thing is that this feeds my admiration for boudoir photo and videography. Boudoir photography is a form of professional photography that is intimate, flattering the curves and beauty of the client’s body. Boudoir, which is French for a woman’s private dressing room, inspires the intimacy of this genre of photography. And I may or may not be experimenting with this genre.
Anyway. Here it is. Here’s the song:
[Verse 1]
I like how you dance
When you’re by yourself
A bottle of wine
Dreaming of dirty things
Make me stay the night
Like you want to
Let me help you lose your mind
Like you want to
[Chorus]
Quit playing cool, I like you
Forever baby
I’ll stick with you, like I should
Forever baby
[Verse 2]
You’re a shimmer of wavering light
When it’s too dark to see
And you’ve made me come to terms
With my mortality, baby
Kiss me till you bite
Like you want to
Let’s fuck all through the night
Like you want to
Quit playing cool, I like you
Forever baby
I’ll stick with you, like I should
Forever baby
Forever baby
Live young ‘till we die
Like you want to
Let’s fuck all through the night
Like you want to
And here is my parabatai: (I LOVE THIS SO MUCH AAH)
An empty hotel room. Clean sheets. Bare closets. Open windows. A lone ashtray sitting on the table.
She imitates the room, stripping naked.
Cherry red heels strewn across the bathroom floor. They almost look abandoned next to the bucket of wine. The window above the bathtub lets in a soft mellow light, light that dances with the soap on her skin.
Why does the sun feel better on skin that is bare? Why does the air feel like a living, physical presence when she slides out of all her different layers?
The curtains feel softer against her palm, The wood coarser under her gliding fingertips.
The bed more inviting by the moment. Like starving hands eager to trace every curve, every freckle.
And why does it feel better than being touched by another?
In this room, in this space, she is the centre of everything.
Like a top let loose, she can spin on her feet, hands above her head she can spin all she wants.
Knowing she is worshipped by the air, the curtains, the bed, the mirror, the ashtray and even her own red heels.
Oh the sensation!
To dance, to sway, to stretch and turn, to feel every movement of her body as she commands it.
As the light fades outside, she too slips into something darker. Going from soft skin to pulled up hair and long black earrings.
From the sun warm and bright to a single yellow lamp, casting seductive shadows on her body.
From detached silence to a song blasting on the radio.
Desire had never felt more real or more futile.
But as she left the room, her scent lingered in the air with the promise of that desire.
Desire so intense that even the song yearned for her.
And here’s me: (i only kinda like this. wanted to extend it, but ok. it’s a mess, idk, i’m not answerable. i had fun writing it. the all new format was fun.)
the door opens—(and my death it is)—her in a bathtub—(or was it you?)—why do i look at you—(and think of her)—you’re singing of desire—(making it rise in me)—your legs shapely, perfect—(or is it my love, my imagination?)—i don’t know what i am writing—(do i need to?)—i don’t know if you love me or not—(i don’t want to)—i am happy in my fantasies—(there’s you, there’s me, there’s us)—what is the meaning of love—(your red plastic heels in my hands)—your hands soapy—(do they look sexier on the flesh of my skin or gliding across the flat wooden vastness of the table?)—why do you have to be this way—(how do you make me be like this?)—why can’t you love me back—(do i want you to?)—why do you kill me—(kiss me already, for fuck’s sake)—let’s lie in the bed together like thousands before us have and drink wine off each other’s skins—(let’s name it a new emotion)—let’s call our love something else—(and maybe it will be spared, maybe we will be spared)
(oh, will you just look at these gorgeous shots 😳)
Dhriti Patel 