my etsy favorites are epic

Smoochin between cigs

I spend a good portion of my life day dreaming about love, watching people in love on the street and searching for photographs of strangers smoochin! These are all currently on my etsy watch list.

If you’ve been fortunate/unfortunate enough to have held my romantic interest at some point it’s likely you’ve received a personally selected and purchased photo with some poetry written on the back.

It’s fun to imagine who these people are, love is such a human experience. I want to wallpaper my bathroom with photos of strangers smooching.

The captions given by the Etsy sellers also warm my heart. Some of my favorites are below. Just waiting to pull the trigger.

Kiss at the bar with telephone. Man and woman smoking and smooching

A Little Tongue - 1980's Young Lover's Share A Moment

Headless Faceless Woman Holding Kissing Poodle Dog and Siamese Cat in her Lap

ROMANTIC KISS But Boyfriend Is Getting a Little HANDSY 1940s

NEWER OLDER

moby rich

Unknown Men by Unknown Photographer

Sitting at the Gutter Bar at the annual Indian Larry Street party, I approached a group of silver-backed men. A bee drawn to some blooming buds. A racehorse with blinkers galloping down the final stretch. I narrow in on them,  a sniper, lining up the rifle scope, ready to shoot and wound, maybe catch but not kill. I stretch out my hand toward the biggest silverback. His soft uncalloused hand envelopes my paw. My hand has been fed to a whale, his palm the tongue of the sea beast. My hand plankton, willing itself into a new realm, swimming deep into the underbelly of the man. My palm sits on the sea beasts tongue as he says "Rich". "I'm Rich, this is Rich and this is Tom". A movie trailer plays in my mind, the font reads. MOBY RICH.  I think about what bike he might ride, and that surely he must wear gloves regardless of the weather. To have such unmarked uncalloused hands was new to me. The man I'm seeing, Duck, has hard hards. Hands that wore the uniform of the grit that comes with a bike, stained black most of the time, his short fingernails holding dark thin lines at their tips, so perfectly placed, as on the eyes of a geisha. Duck wore rings on all his fingers but his thumbs. I guess those two fingers felt different from the rest, unembellished. Thumbs were truly too important to be dressed up, they didn't need to peacock, they required no accouterments. They were superior to the less sophisticated fellas, the pointer, ring, middle and pinky. He would put each finger into his mouth, coating it with saliva, loosening its grip on his skin, as he would peel them off. It looked painful. The rhythmics of them landing on my glass coffee table one by one,  anchors diving into water in some synchronized swimming competition. The sound alone was enough for me to grow goosebumps down one side of my body.

I spoke to Moby Rich about bikes and a mouse tattoo on a vagina he'd seen at a bar. He told me they'd spotted my hair as I sat on a bollard watching a band, they were delighted that I had narrowed in on them at the bar. You see I love humans, I love to watch them, really look at them, watch their eyes and see what they roll over, what they rest on and wonder why. 

We cheers'd every time a new topic was brought up, it felt like a new ritual that the four of us were partaking in. Do something three times and it becomes a tradition. That would mean I guess most things are tradition. Cut your nails three times, tradition. Kiss someone three times, tradition. Eat the same meal thrice, it's tradition. More shit was shot, Tom was quiet. I wonder why. Perhaps he felt left out not being named Richard. He was no Dick. He rarely said anything, but when he did it was poignant. I questioned if Tom had someone to love at home. It felt nice to imagine what might make Tom tick. Sudoku, a warm cup of coffee with some creamer, the smell of freshly mown grass, sweeping autumn leaves off his porch, and watching what he believed to be the same fireflies return each night for their ritual pre-dinner beer. Tom loved a woman once I imagine, but she was stolen by a louder-mouthed man, who sold her the world, but in the end, the loudest men are rarely the ones you want to hold you in the night, the ones who pull your hair back just to clear the field, to place seedlings of kisses on your neck before wishing you sweet dreams. I felt for Tom and hoped that when he returned to Long Island it may not be too late for him to greet those fireflies for their nightly reunion. I wonder if he would mention me and my curly hair, sitting on the bollard.

I straddle Duck and the chopper and my body is crouched as my cuban heels hold steady on the pegs, I look like a crouching tiger. Only I knew there was a hidden dragon. We hurtle along the Williamsburg Bridge, the wind is the perfect temperature to hold your eyes open, take no blink. The bright lights of Manhattan wooing and cooing at us to come inside, back to the beast. I hear motors roaring behind us married with "Mollllyyyyy". I turn around and who is it but Moby Rich, Rich and Tom. Like synchronized jets they surround us and I feel these are the moments I live for. Unwritten moments, not even god could script. Moments I want to remember forever. Those of chance, kismet, and feelings of sympatico all balled together. They say they are lost, but there is no way Moby Rich, Rich, and Tom could be lost. They'd made it this far, they were on the home stretch.

NEWER OLDER

FULL OF HOT AIR

BALLOON BOY

Before Duck arrives I sit in my window, slowly sucking on cigarettes, letting them char down to the filter. The smell of the filter burning signals that I've got my money's worth, that I deserve another. I finished a task. Nothing goes to waste. He rolls down 2nd street and I can hear him before I see him. The roar of a lion, of a metal beast ripping down an otherwise quiet life. The noise is for me, it's mine.  That all-encompassing nausea rises in me and I wait to hear the gate to the metal stoop clang, as he ascends the stairs. Each stomp of those steel-capped boots echoed through my body. I eagerly await him entering my front door. It's summertime hot, dripping, sopping wet, sweaty, feral fucked hot. I want to wrap him in a wet towel, in my arms, between my legs. I desire for him to grab me by the throat and pin me against the wall, I want him to love me, to whisper words in my ear, words I have never heard, words I have to look up, words that hurt me, words to ruminate on, words to destroy me.

I watched his Roman nose with it's smattering of freckles as he blew up pink balloons for Bella's arrival. He took to the balloon blowing like he was at the Coney Island hot dog eating contest. His hyper-focus on the task at hand was mesmerizing, I watched him, and I was sure I could watch him all day. I found him beyond interesting. Beyond the cliff face of interest. He floated mid-air, untouchable and I just watched in disbelief. It's the type of fascination that is blinding, and sickening. I wanted him to talk at me, tell me everything, all the things that happened to him, all the things he did. I wanted him to tell me what he regrets, how he fucked up, who he fucked, who he loves, who he hates, what makes him sad, what makes him sleep, and what moves him.

We nipped down to Jac's for a cocktail. It was dewy and hot out, so we went inside to grab a couple of martinis. The bar was full of clean people, people who didn't bear the physical attributes of having made mistakes, they appeared to not have been ruffed by life, unlike Duck and me.

We pop outside to sit alone on Bond Street. Cars turn down the street and their headlights hit me in the face, he moved his head to shade me from the light pollution. I wanted him to kiss me, so I masticate my olives and feed them to him, he's my baby bird. He returns the favor and this feeding time of two zoo animals in downtown Manhattan is a spectacle. However there's no one to observe. No children to scare. It's just him and I, and our olives. You do something three times and it becomes tradition. That was our third time being feathered freaks.

We decide to kick on for dinner, the local Vietnamese joint is shut. A group of youths watch us walk past and yell "you look cool" I grab him and say, they think you're cool. He says that's all you. They yell back " You're both cool". It begins to pour. I love walking in the rain, the water soaks through the clothing and we're being bathed alive, in public. We don't walk faster, it's nice getting wet. It feels real, why run for cover? Rain hurts no one, especially when you're in love.

NEWER OLDER