limerence

I just wanna get high with my lover
Veo una muñeca cuando miro en el espejo
Kiss, kiss
Looking dolly, I think I may go out tonight
I just wanna ride, get high in the moonlight

-"Moonlight" by Kali Uchis

They drove up into the hills to the spot where they'd once watched the Fourth of July fireworks on a sweltering summer night nearly a decade ago. The valley below their feet was a carnival of dotted lights. Grey wisps of cirrus clouds glinted from the light of the three-quarter moon. 

She sat perched on the hood of the car. He leaned forward, fishing his vape out from his jacket. She'd always hated his habit, the perpetual carton of cigarettes tucked in his pockets. She thought about making a comment about how at least he no longer coated his lungs with tar, but swallowed the words. She had forfeit the right to make those comments years ago.

In an alternate life, maybe she would have stayed. But they'd each chosen paths that shut the doors on others, until the crisscross of alternative timelines withered off the vine. 

He exhaled beside her. A sweet scent rose into the air. 

He caught her staring in his periphery and turned. His eyes met hers, placid and impossible to read. Minutes passed before he moved. Maintaining his gaze, as if daring her to stop him, he settled his left hand over her right hand, palm down on the hood of the car. The calluses on his palm brushed against the back of her fingers, enveloping her in warmth. 

An errant cloud floated across the moon, casting shadows across their faces, granting a moment of privacy. His thumb stroked the back of her hand in a lazy rhythm as he watched her, like a panther with a tail swishing in anticipation. 

 In an alternate life, maybe she would have looked away.

She shifted her hand under his palm until their fingers were interlaced together. Without breaking eye contact, she raised their interlocked hands to her mouth. Her breath exhaled as she brushed his skin against her lips in a ghost kiss.

All at once, they were sixteen and seventeen again, intoxicated on the fumes of first love.

Astral

i feel the beat of your heart in 3/4 time, waltzing down my spine.

night descends upon us in a minor key. the darkness is a cocoon, a cradle for new things birthed in the night.

i unlatch, and my soul stretches to you like the fingers of a nebula.

--- 

It's been a little over a month since I started my New Year's Resolution of waking up early to write 1 hour per day. In some ways, it's been like picking up running again, waking up muscles you haven't used in a while. In terms of my daily word count output, it's not great by any means... but it's still better than what I was doing before, which was months-long stretches of zeros punctuated by random word-vomits over a rare weekend. Since I started this, I've churned out roughly 5000 words for Med Rom Com.

I'm still out of practice, and I can tell. Some of this might be due to how absolute shite my attention span has gotten. During the first draft of EP, I would get into these writing spells that I could only describe as submergence. On a free weekend, I could sit at my table writing for hours, then emerge with a full chapter that sang and vibrated. These days, one hour without looking at my phone or browsing the Internet is a win. The current process feels like writing with a pen that is on its last dredges of ink, with a bunch of sudden spurts and stops, retracing over what was already written.

We'll see if I can maintain this routine into a long-term habit. I'm hoping the writing gets more instinctive and natural, and my word count picks up as a result. 

I've been working primarily on the first draft of Med Rom Com instead of doing EP revisions. With Med Rom Com, I'm not only trying to cultivate a habit of writing daily, but also I've missed the fun of discovering the characters and chipping away at a new story when you write a first draft for the first time. I'm trying not to put too much pressure on myself -- because at the end of the day, no one cares if I write. I'm doing this for me, and damnit I'm not going to let it become a chore.

This month (February), I kind of picked up a second resolution -- this one I'm less confident I'll be able to maintain. But I'm going to aim to do a 30 minute treadmill run every day. I'm in my early thirties, and I've read Reddit threads about advice that people would give people in their 20s or 30s. Examples include using sunscreen daily (Check - been doing this for years) and seeing a dentist regularly (Check). One of the biggest ones is keeping up with physical activity/exercise. I work in the medical field -- how many times have I told patients they need to exercise more? Time to put my money where my mouth is. Considering that Alzheimer's runs in my family, it'll be good for my brain as well as my heart.