Her Music, Irina Tall Novikova, 2023. Ink, gel pen, collage, cardboard, colored paper. 40 x 30 cm.
I'm Going to Do It
Angela Townsend
I’m going to name my condo the way people ennoble manors. My condo is already noble. We shall foreswear such honorifics as Pelicans’ Plaza or Pleasant Arches in favor of Cupcake Cubby or Suburban Funky Fest. I will welcome the visiting squirrels Chancellor Ditalini and Commodore Bellbottom, and no one will laugh but God.
I’m going to acquire hosiery dappled with tacos wearing sunglasses and tigers playing saxophones. My Maker preferred me without a torso, so the world will not provide me with pants of sufficient length. I shall douse my dilemma with gasoline by drawing attention to my socks. I will spend extra on glow-in-the-dark varieties.
I’m going to ask at the supermarket if they know the difference between mollusks and crustaceans. I will ask if they enjoy the word “mollusk” as much as I do, especially when used as a synonym for “congressperson.” As they make haste for the bakery, I will remind them to enjoy the words “flotilla” and “festoon” today.
I’m going to blow-dry my bangs to demonstrate that gravity is less of a law than a recommendation. My hair has submitted to the violent orthodoxy of a frizzophobic world for decades. Each strand was selected to sizzle like an electrified crinkle fry. I shall now permit it the Pentecostal elevation it prefers.
I’m going to return brochures about gutter helmets to their senders with large happy-face stickers. I am going to return mail addressed to my ex-husband with stickers of dogs dressed as people, which are abominations left out of the book of Revelation only due to space constraints.
I’m going to join the second graders in the Young Creativity aisle of the craft store, crowdsourcing recommendations on puff paint. I will find final-sale river rocks that failed to reach their destiny in centerpieces. I shall squiggle them with the prophesy “You are unconditionally loved,” and remind any protestors that prophesy means not “sneak peek” but “tough truth.”
I’m going to raise myself to my full height in the pew and on the internet. My ancestors will splash my face with bravery. I will speak of the juggernaut mercy of God and the tumbleweeds that roll alone through Hell. I will defend André 3000’s all-flute album and your accountant aunt’s romance with the hammered dulcimer and the freedom of beings to be more than they were.
I’m going to install night lights in every outlet of Suburban Funky Fest. I have read the Good Housekeeping articles advising placid darkness for optimal sleeping. I have consumed a thousand best practices and weighed them and measured them and found them wanting. I will consume cola in citric yellow light while singing the full score of Hamilton to my cats immediately before bed. I shall sleep like the just.
I’m going to notice when the executive assistant abruptly stops wearing earrings. I will follow her to the back rooms behind her eyes, where she stacks empty Golden Oreo boxes and everything smells like wet cardboard. I will tell her she can text me at all hours of the night. She will be uncomfortable, and I will squeeze her hand. I will send her a neon orange notecard covered in superheroes and remind her that she excels them all.
I’m going to ask my father, my grandfather, and my deceased cats to pray for me every time I sit at the keyboard. I will look at the statue of Jesus, permanently touching his own heart, and I will lay my hand upon my own. I will ask them to put my adverbs on their anvil. I will acknowledge that “many are the words of a fool.” I will exult that many are the fools who festoon the world in grace garland.
I’m going to clap my hands when my cat bares her armpits solely because she has been equipped with a nervous system and a doctoral stipend to research pleasure. I will call my mother to celebrate the imperial takeover of Gain-adjacent products, enabling us to scent both our underpants and our amygdalas. We will concur that, centuries hence, members of our civilization will recognize each other by the smell of Moonlight Reverie.
I’m going to ask for forgiveness every time I take a breath. I may accept advice to take more. I will forget forgiveness and advice when I am thirsty or unwashed. I will write a letter to the editor to ask if anyone has considered the radical implications of being a person. I will respond to the next of many rejections from The Paris Review by asking if they have ever considered the hilarity of the word “underpants.”
I’m going to look for the Great Mercy under every crouton and rap. I’m going to lay my hand upon my heart until I love the world enough to face tomorrow. I’m going to do it.
Angela Townsend (she/her) is the Development Director at Tabby’s Place: a Cat Sanctuary. She graduated from Princeton Seminary and Vassar College. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Arts & Letters, Chautauqua, Paris Lit Up, The Penn Review, The Razor, and The Westchester Review, among others. She is a 2023 Best Spiritual Literature nominee. Angie has lived with Type 1 diabetes for thirty-three years, laughs with her poet mother every morning, and loves life affectionately.