Sweat - 04.05.25
I found this image today and for some reason it really struck me. It made me think of something that feels very specific, but I can not quite place my finger on it. It smells like that cool, early summer air that rolls in during the evenings and mornings. It reminds me partly of walking home from - house in Summer 2019. I was fourteen and my curfew was ''as long as you're home before dark'' and although I often would ignore that, I was careful to follow that when I had seen - because I did not want to be asked where I had been. I would walk home along that straight road from his place to mine right as night was starting to graze the sky. It would always be that sweet spot in the day where the mozzies come out and I would swerve between dense clouds of them that gathered at the brush lining the pavement. That fresh smell of body would cling to my clothes, and I could literally smell it radiating from me. I feel like that smell connects so primitively with a part of your biology that is wired for sex that it almost hits you more like a feeling than just a smell. Fresh sweat on a man will do that, too. When I smell that, a light switches on my nervous system like a shark sniffing blood. I always feel like my perception of sex is so poetic and intellectual but my body lighting up at the detection of sweat pheromones reminds me I really do have the same biology as those men who search for sex in everything, without even meaning to. I know this page will be poorly written, but I am making an active effort to just take what is inside my head and put it somewhere. Every time I try, I become so involved in trying to make it accessible and interesting for another person to read that I lose the whole point of doing this. I think constantly and painfully all the time and I am devastated by the idea of so much thought becoming lost. Maybe this is a self-absorbed way of thinking, but I am complex, and I am so frightened of all that complexity just getting lost to time. I want so badly to take my inner world and put it somewhere in a way that I can see and reflect on. I want to be able to flick through the book of my inner world in real life, but I first need to write it.
Every time I write something like this, I am so aware of the pointlessness of it that I struggle to wholly enjoy it. Like, whenever I am not sitting and writing, I feel like writing/creating (even in such a messy way as this) is a good idea and definitely a better use of my time than scrolling or watching YouTube, but when I am actually here doing it, it feels wrong. I am so obsessed with productivity, and I feel constantly like I should only create things that I can neatly package and put out to be consumed by other people. I am trying to move away from that, because I genuinely do believe that the value in creation is more in the process than the product, but its difficult to connect with that value in the moment.
I hadn't realised until I felt dampness on my hand, but I have been picking at a scab on my leg without even noticing. I have several long strips of scabs running up my shins since I got upset the other day. I had been out at - last Friday and I got drunk with this girl called -, who I know vaguely but only through other friends. We ended up going back to my flat since I had no ID and wouldn't have been let into any clubs, and we sat on the floor talking drunkenly about God knows what. I barely remember the details of our conversation. As the night crawled on, things got heavier and heavier until 4am came and we were listening to sad Radiohead songs, both crying in each other's arms about how excruciating it is to be seen as a sex object by men. I think at some point I had taken my skirt off because it was so short and tight, the two belts I wore with it were frustrating me. So, I was half naked sobbing in this poor girl's lap. After she went home, I called - and [section removed], so I [section removed]. I really scratched up my whole body, but as usual my shins got the brunt of it. I woke up the next day horribly hungover, extremely late for whatever I had on that day, with mascara everywhere and fingernails full of blood. No - and a lot of shame. I felt so embarrassed, and so guilty that I didn't offer her to sleep the night.
Its 10:30pm and I am exhausted, despite barely doing anything today. It took me until 3pm just to get out of bed and once I was up, the struggle of it stressed me out so much I just started crying. It took me literally an hour and a half just to psych myself up to go to Boots and get more black hair dye so my hair looks fresh for the gig in a few days. I am really painting myself to be pathetic, right now. I do a lot of not pathetic things, as well, but that's not what this document is for. I know I should start thinking about getting to bed but I just don't feel ready. My inner city is active tonight, and I just CANNOT stop thinking. I would sit and write 10 pages if I didn't know better.