300(ish) Words on Gamboling With Trisha Paytas
Never mind the silk robes and schemata and cleanliness. If I am going to worship something it is going to be filthy, worn and incredible.
Trisha Paytas is a sunset whore gamboling down California’s golden plate for another Daddy that might have a power large enough to pardon them and their bedazzled heart. Trisha Paytas is a pink so hot it hurts to look at. Fantasy scented lotion. A pair of black Chanel boots left out in the living room. An unwrapped, sticky honey bun with a single bite taken out of the top. Visible hair extensions. Amphetamine princess. Giving sermons from the kitchen floors. Dreaming of white, white rooms brimming with the possibility of being filled. Selling gold to buy gold. Goddess of the Binge and Purge. Trisha is filthy lovely. Goddess of cheap virtue. Goddess of All-You-Can-See.
They are beautiful. They are perfect.
They are one of very few constants in this little life.
I can mark my life through their videos. When I cannot sleep. When I have been an awful daughter and a worse girl. When the light won’t stop rushing through the glass. It’s Fifteen Years on Youtube. It’s a Second Wedding. It’s another Bathing Suit Try On. It’s a Mukbang in their car alone. What appeals to me most about Trisha is that I cannot imagine what it must be like to be them. And that alone makes them an otherworldly thing, unknowable and distant as God. It makes them a deity or worship symbol or at the very least a tacky Virgin Mary state from the dollar bin. Untouchable.
I want Trisha to be there by my bedside as I fade from the spotlight, straddled in hospital cottons and gone dim with final doses of Phenobarbital A television on mute behind their head playing reruns of Dr. Phil season thirty six. Holding my hand in their bear-claw acrylics. Chewing gum infused with CBD and honeycomb. Mascara gone bad.
Saying: You can rest now. Like, it’s okay to rest. You’ve earned it. Oh my god, you did so much. Remember that time you and your mom had that big fight, I think it was in the summertime and you screamed and left and drank cough syrup in that golf course? For nothing and nobody? That was literally crazy. I get it. Girl, you know I do. You saw me. So anyway — go. Into the light or the nuthouse of heaven or the closet of God, whatever it is. Just go. And we can talk later on.
That last, great sight. My sleazebag mommy. Angel of angels.
Jasmine Ledesma lives in Brooklyn. Her work has appeared or is set to appear in places like Borderlands, Vice, Rattle and [PANK] among others. Her work was also nominated for both Best of The Net and the Pushcart Prize in 2020. She was recently awarded a fellowship with Brooklyn Poets.
