wish you were (incubus version)

It wasn't at all in my plans when I got up this morning but I took a yoga class tonight. Chorale was short because it was the end of the semester, and Andy collected music (from everyone but me...I felt special) and wished us well, and so I went to the outskirts of Cambridge and took a yoga class that left me in a heap. I don't really understand the chanting of 'Om' three times at the beginning and end of the practice (and I got dirty looks when I sang my 'Om' a major third higher than everyone else). I guess it's to center yourself in your body and with the "oneness"of the others in the room, but I always wish it was more musical than it is.
I noticed some old habits when I was in the yoga class though, the pinching my waist and feeling for my hip bones, running my fingers along my jaw line, all in an attempt to assess my body, my weight, how am I doing, how worthy am I? Those aren't the literal words in my head, but I know enough to identify the surrounding thoughts. My food has been strange lately. I've been utterly uninterested, rarely hungry, and when I am hungry it's a pretty powerful feeling to acknowledge that it's not the kind of uncontrollable hunger I would feel when I wanted to binge, rather it's a quiet gnawing that, rather than trigger my search for a meal, has given me permission to congratulate myself for resisting. Also, I've lost a little weight without thinking about it, and so now that I've noticed of course I'm thinking about it. So...that's not so hot. It would help if I actually found the time to go grocery shopping and find bargain produce or something, and didn't subsist entirely off of trail mix, yogurt, cereal and carrots. Really, Mollie. You should know better than this... little dangerous doncha think? So there's my fessing up in text. I'm committing to eating three meals tomorrow. Embarrassing to admit these sort of things. It's like saying Tomorrow, I pledge not to poop my pants, or Tomorrow I will tie BOTH of my shoes! This is a basic thing. Children have mastered this, and yet I'm still unable to feed myself in a reasonable way

So now I'm just out of the shower about to go over some of the Recitative that Andy assigned me for tomorrow. It's to short excerpts from the Messiah, but the thing about Recitative is that the conductor isn't in charge; the soloist is in charge. So it's a matter of anticipating beats and cuing the orchestra based on the pacing of the soloist. I'm horrible at it. Really truly confused. I wish I had a better handle on it before going to meet with Andy.

Other news, other news...oh...poem...last poetry class of the semester. Here's what I brought.

***


He’s Homeless

Hate mourning soon; lets kill soon.
Swell the served, reserved,
and rather coddle-brained winter again.

How did my evening’s madman become such a pansy?
It happened when his hands moved up, over his swollen stomach,
to touch the plush hanging skin round his neck,
creaky piped, clammy tongued.
Socks are his fur-lined mittens.

Would you believe this seedy loaf of a man--
My canker sore of a hobby.

We may both be thinking of crude, sharp innuendos—
The azure bowl in both our hands, our well-wishing plate
Crumb-scuddled, so empty?
Give in. Scrape up.
Sloppy papa and no-art daughter.
We might both erode, I guess.
Gypped and reserved and enshrouded, but which of us first?
Smelling of rag-wool, like an unwashed soup can, I cuddle in his collar.

***


The poems I've gathered this semester are like benchmarks of where my brain has been going. My professor's feedback was that it admitted a real loneliness from the speaker. I hadn't really intended that, but it's amazing how, when one writes, what's living in you seeps through.