Alexa Butterfly Morales

I do, right now, at noon, under gray skies, with a slight cold and a deadline I can’t seem to make headway on. The thought of love came to me unbidden so here it is: It’s that heightened sense of everything. Life seems important, and purposeful, and glamorous. There’s a rush, still air brushes your skin, your hair falls in ringlets and your cheeks glow. Sex is an insatiable force, you can’t stop thinking about it, it calls to you and you feel like a superhuman acrobatic wonder girl. You want to share biographies, and laugh together, and remember his every word.

I saw one of my favorite movies last weekend. Every so often our public station runs oldies late at night. This was Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart in that movie set in San Francisco where Bogart is a recent prison escapee. Why do I love the silver screen? Logically I know that no time in the past was better than this time now. But I want to crawl into that diorama, inhabit Bacall’s apartment with swing music playing on the record, be that blithely witty beauty, and feel that chemistry that she and Bogart embody so well.

Pragmatically speaking, what is love? What is sex? Mere distractions. My life has a purpose and I’m living it. I do have love and sex. But like chocolate or a bit of retail therapy, that delicious falling-in-love memory just wafted into my consciousness — perhaps for the simple reason that I’m procrastinating!

I’ve mined that feeling multiple times, in many songs. One I posted recently on Soundcloud attracted some attention and a few private messages. I originally recorded it as Your Love, and then on my second record I translated it into Spanish, Tu Amor. The funny thing is, I wrote it about a man I never even kissed. He was a boss I had, and we had chemistry. Hoo did we. One day after some vicious mutual flirting I went back to my desk. I could feel him through three walls. And I wrote this song. Creative license, baby. Enjoy!