Jennifer Parkhill Instagram – To be alive is to mourn. Beds where we once rested our heads, people we once rested beside, animals we’ve loved, family we’ve lost, our bodies. We mourn what has been, what can never be again, hopes dashed, love soured, spring flowers that cannot last. Some days I mourn my 20 year-old knees, my grandmother’s ability to drive a car after dark, cities where young love dripped from me, my child-feet standing on my father’s surfboard, his head still full of hair. Memory, a sweet grief, exquisite and excruciating.
There are people who criticize me for posting images like this one on the internet. What I’d like to tell them is that I am mourning my tits which will not always stand perky, upright, like this. I’m mourning the queer youth I didn’t have. I’m mourning a fading dream of nursing babies. A window closing. Another day’s sun setting. I am in mourning for my life. I want to remember. I am but a body and a heart with some words. I want to remember what is.
I’m sitting around a kitchen table in Los Angeles. The very kitchen where this photograph was taken. I’m talking to two friends from different eras of my life, each having had a profound impact on me. Two friends I met on different coasts for whom I am the connective tissue. They now have a friendship all their own. There is little I love more than being this glue. Two friends who now live under one roof and co-parent a dog named Elvis.
Tonight I find myself with them. A night which could not have been planned. Exactly the way I like it. Travel dates changed. Here I am. Adam sets the dinner table for three.
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📸 @adamcolemandp
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#writer #grief #longlovemomo #love #queerwriters #wordporn #animals #lovinganimals #mourning #heartexplosion #cats #catsofinstagram #queer #queerpoet #queerpoetry #family #friendship | Posted on 03/Sep/2022 05:05:20
