I am possibly dangerous; I am entering the Kingdom

This week, all I can think of are may apples, blackberry blooms, bright sunshiney arboretums, and the last full moon of spring tonight. Flower moon, they call it, and it's even in my sign. But it's an eclipse so of course, it's supposed to hurt. 

I always think of it as the Milky moon. Being in South Boston last weekend, it felt more fitting with the way the grass and woods smelled as night fell down: something smooth, sweet, and achingly nostalgic. The hot wood of old oak trunks down and splitting in the sunlight, or the fawn I scared up from the edge of the field. I spent the time clipping rose bushes without gloves and now my hands are patterned with the constellation marks of thorns. 

I'm home now. My friend sent me a video her dad took of two black snakes mating in the front yard of her childhood home. They look fucking wild, ecstatic, twined around each other and roiling in a way that's confusing, stirring, and a little upsetting. In the graveyard, at the top of a certain tree, there are two fuzzy, perfect red tailed hawk nestlings. Their parents take them baby rabbits to eat and antagonize my crows.

I am starting to think that I'm too connected into my internal world of these things. Like an actually crazy person would be. I feel like I used to be a little funny or tongue-in-cheek, and now I'm just actually weird. It reminds me a bit of being off a long while ago in 2016, when all I could do was use fancy nontoxic lavender oil spray on the countertops, getting lost in the act of wiping them down again and again. Last week, an acquaintance stopped by when I was over at a friend's letting the dogs run around. I hadn't seen the acquaintance since the pandemic, but we barely know each other, so when he asked how I had been doing, I could have said something normal. But all I could think to tell him was about the dead cat I'd watched the buzzards dismantle in the graveyard. I didn't say it, though. I changed the subject. 

Later that night, when he had left, my friend asked me if I was doing okay and I just started crying in front of her. These are good examples of the things that makes me think getting into therapy for myself might be a good option. I get along on my little days unless I am specifically confronted with a question that makes me examine my own perspective. Tomorrow is my last couple's therapy, and maybe that's something I should say. Or maybe not. 

Venus of Pompeii, be kind

May. Milk moon. Driving home from the beach last weekend, fresh off visiting my mom, I stop at a roadside shack and buy small, sweet strawberries. I wash them with the fancy bubble water I was drinking until they look as bright as gems in the sunshine. I eat them as I drive north on 64 through Hampton Roads, Richmond, and Charlottesville, stopping in Crozet to buy a little can of coldbrew coffee. It thinks about storming, starts a little bit, and then thinks better of it. Sunshine on wet pavement. I haven't moved around the state in a long time, or driven further than Elkhorn or to my parents. Even then rarely. It all makes me cry and cry, like the world is too green and raw and I'm unused to it after so long.

In July, I'll go back to the area for my tattoo, and then again, and then again. (It's a big tattoo. Each session is six hours and there are to be three sessions.) I'm a little nervous. But how much can moths hurt me?

*

My friend, sitting out in the after-sunset dim of the yard, says her baby is moving and puts my hand on the spot. She says I need to push hard so down, really bounce my bunched fingers against her stomach, because this activity will attract the fetus. She promises I can't hurt it. Can you imagine? Me: so harmless. I obey fruitlessly for what feels like a long time and it's awkward. She and I aren't especially close, and her rounded stomach feels oddly hard, not at all soft like mine. 

But then I feel it. It reminds me of fly-fishing, the way a fish hits the line with one hard strike, bouncing the rod back against my palm. I imagine her baby as a trout, silver as moonlight, surfacing up from black water and casting ripples across my fingertips. 

*

My head is so full of crows. I spent all day with them, looking at them, or gardening. This sounds lonely, but they talk a lot.