Washing Machine Heart
Mitski
Toss your dirty shoes in my washing machine heart
“Toss” implies distance. This love is not even close enough to put their shoes in, nor can they be bothered to walk. But they do have perfect aim.
Baby, bang it up inside
“Baby” both absolves and infantilizes. It is her desire and her insult.
I’m not wearing my usual lipstick
Perhaps she is wearing her unusual lipstick. The blue one that tastes like berries. A very vulnerable thing to do, to make oneself unusual.
I thought maybe we would kiss tonight
There is always the moment, when you plan to kiss someone, before it happens. The moment when you both know why you’re there. When all that can be felt is the distance between two mouths. This moment, most pleasurable, comes with a splinter of terror. When you think, “what if this is a one way attraction?” Is it possible I’ve imagined sexual tension? Or must there be two vibrating bodies to complete the circuit?
Baby, will you kiss me already
“Already” calls attention to all the time that came before. She waits to sing. The longer you wait the dryer her mouth gets. She tries to re-lather it with saliva, and wonders if there is time for one more sip of water without ruining the moment.
Toss your dirty shoes in my washing machine heart
A “washing machine” is very loud. It makes no secret of its work. Of its turmoil and toiling. It is a rebellion of bolts screaming in chorus.
Baby, bang it up inside
Clamouring for a kiss.
Baby, though I’ve closed my eyes
Though closing your eyes protects you from how other people see, it too makes you more aware of yourself. Without external stimuli to distract, there is nothing but your insides and how they feel; your gut and what it is trying to tell you. My gut doesn’t know anything. It just bloats and whines.
Or,
“And I’m counting to 10! Hurry and hide!”
I know who you pretend I am
Then it should be easy to pretend to be her, too.
I know who you pretend I am
Like a guessing game or a taunting mantra. She invites her love to say, “Oh really, who?” So that she may describe someone much worse than herself. And all in all come out feeling quite good.
Do mi ti
Do you miss touch?
Why not me?
As in, you could do much worse.
Why not me?
As in, is “not me” your only requirement?
Do mi ti
Don’t make me miss it.
Why not me?
It can’t be worse than what I say about myself.
Why not me?
At least if you say something bad enough I have a reason to hate you.
Do mi ti
Do me this favor, drink my tears.
Why not me?
She has said this so many times the words are putty. They start to stick together in new ways. “Whine on me?” Let me soak you up.
Why not me?
I am just like so many other people.
“Why not me?” is a question perfectly between our most immature melodramas and softest vulnerabilities. It is agonizing over a crush that will not pick you. Imagining yourself to be the fairytale ending they cannot see. But it is also a question that cuts us no slack. That puts personal fault at the center of unhappiness and claims distance from perfection will always equal distance from love. When I ask myself this question the answer is always petty. I do not mean to take away from the very painful reality of feeling un-chosen. But there is often a disjunction between the seriousness with which I take my would-be-love in moments of desire, and the rather pathetic critical thinking skills I prescribe them in my answers to this question. At the same time that my crush turns them brilliant, I ask “why not me?” so that I can imagine them to be petty and shallow.
My crush history is a bed of nails. So pointy and unrelenting that I have been known to, in only semi-irony, refer to my “unrequited love.” This is pathetic because he was the worst. He was one of those guys that thought he was an absolute treasure because he just looooved books. His demeanor proclaimed: “I am the motherfucking man I have discovered intellectualism (and I don’t even have to try).” He loved to think about how smart he was and was arrogantly unaware that his opinions had actually been crafted by white dude film critics. Opinions which he subsequently swallowed, shit out, and presented to a room full of jaw-dropped onlookers as if it were his magnum opus.
And was I ever one of them. I used to beg him to pay attention to me, wish that he would whisper to me in class so that I could tell myself he did not care how uncool I was. I pined over him like I’ve never pined in my life, and I still carry that embarrassment with me. I remember it right before bed. It is a creature that crawls a foot behind my ankles all day, and reaches me at this moment of rest. Here with nothing better to do I let it scratch at my legs. I bleed on my sheets, and in the morning I am embarrassed of the stain.
In response to “already” I described a case of dry-mouth. A strange, probably flawed characterization of the moments before a kiss. Especially so given the wetness of a washing machine. Mitski “know[s] who you pretend [she is].” So her heart is a washing machine. As much as you will bang it up she will spin you around. In her thick metal box she rattles and shakes, “a rebellion of bolts screaming in chorus.” Though she tells the story of a love that does not see her, that will stomp through her chest and exploit her kindness for clean shoes, she does not deny herself agency. She sings herself into an object, an object that determines the action. Or at least that is an alluring reading. One I cling to for Mitski but deny myself. When I remember my unrequited love I feel embarrassment more than anger. Having not spoken to him in years, I could curtail this embarrassment through self-reflection. Perhaps through a reframing of the past I could turn my heart into a washing machine and claim control. Or I could resist growth with imagined dry-mouth. With a body that cannot wow, or spin anyone around.