i rest my arms above my head and notice that i smell like an animal, like skin slick with sweat, a writhing back damp to the touch. thinking about how weird it would be if humans panted like dogs, who also whimper and twitch as they dream of perfect days. not feeling far from the wild need to run through a field of tall grasses and collapse onto a bed of clovers. how lucky am i to be a sweaty beast just like all of the others. dirt under fingernails i claw toward my own personhood, outstretched wanting to know if there really is a difference between how i am you and you are me.
〰️
i don’t know why you are so caught up in maintaining that version of me, so spongey and porous. unaware that every moment is fleeting and that, even now, i struggle to remember the exact details; how my small hands grasped a pencil or pet the belly of a dog. how i walked without concerning the space i was taking up. that i was taking up more space than allowed. that i would eventually want to become small. i want to remember back to when i didn’t think about what it meant to have a body. when i wasn’t old enough to give advice to those wiser than me. how my hair blew in the breeze, knotting at the nape of my neck rushing past the small details that built my world. i wish i could hold a rabbit and feel it relax.
〰️
i rest my arms above my head and notice that i smell like an animal, like skin slick with sweat, a writhing back damp to the touch. thinking about how weird it would be if humans panted like dogs, who also whimper and twitch as they dream of perfect days. not feeling far from the wild need to run through a field of tall grasses and collapse onto a bed of clovers. how lucky am i to be a sweaty beast just like all of the others. dirt under fingernails i claw toward my own personhood, outstretched wanting to know if there really is a difference between how i am you and you are me. 〰️ i don’t know why you are so caught up in maintaining that version of me, so spongey and porous. unaware that every moment is fleeting and that, even now, i struggle to remember the exact details; how my small hands grasped a pencil or pet the belly of a dog. how i walked without concerning the space i was taking up. that i was taking up more space than allowed. that i would eventually want to become small. i want to remember back to when i didn’t think about what it meant to have a body. when i wasn’t old enough to give advice to those wiser than me. how my hair blew in the breeze, knotting at the nape of my neck rushing past the small details that built my world. i wish i could hold a rabbit and feel it relax. 〰️
i share blood with those who do not share my name. an ephemeral connection of divine oblique spirit. woven into fleshy memory, residing in bone, in trees, grass, dirt, rock, flowers, in my lover’s hair, in my lover’s mouth, in the act of self creation, in the sticky softness, in the glimmers. a beautiful, tangled mess of body and memory, fibrous becomings and unbecomings, resisting the threat of forgetting. desperately grasping, with exhausting resilience, at what we could lose if we do not turn to face the horizon.
〰️
sometimes i fear that my lovers hesitate to touch me. not because i am too fragile, breakable, but because it is obvious i find it unnecessary or unimportant. surely, i don’t crave the soft touch of lips on my skin, or the drip of spit down my thigh. fingers deep inside, churning and massaging. the aching becomes unbearable as it grows into some form of self disgust. believing the falsehood that i don’t yearn and if i do, it must be done quietly. my flesh recoils from fingertips unfamiliar to my own. not from fear, a recollection of past harm, but from shock that a hand would reach in genuine wanting. is this what i have accepted? the surprise in being a body of desire? encased in a skin that stretches over the essence of being alive? i shame myself in the sacredness of having a body, especially an unruly one that has settled in the margins. where self-creation awaits my decision to embrace the responsibility of difference, of vulnerability. this divinity requires commitment of unconditional love that tends to ebb and flow in my generosity. my compassion seems to extend only so far. even when i wish the earth would take me back and let me rest, my body continues to survive out of spite. maybe i should listen to the persistence of my cells. they must be fighting for something. i wish the wind would whisper its secrets. what if i allowed myself to discover again? what if i followed my guts blindly? pull them from my abdomen and watch them ooze toward the horizon? is what i wonder what i want? to live in hedonistic fantasy, amongst the trees, the sun catching glimpses of my joy? pulsing and grinding in ecstasy with lovers i hold close as we become one lump of organic matter? not aware of the indoctrinations i hold in my blood that i exist incorrectly, when there are so many ways to dwell in flesh? i count on the possibilities the future holds for i find it hard to grasp onto anything else. i push through one moment into the next, hoping my body becomes my own. a vessel of pleasure, kinship, and love actualized and ever evolving.
〰️
i share blood with those who do not share my name. an ephemeral connection of divine oblique spirit. woven into fleshy memory, residing in bone, in trees, grass, dirt, rock, flowers, in my lover’s hair, in my lover’s mouth, in the act of self creation, in the sticky softness, in the glimmers. a beautiful, tangled mess of body and memory, fibrous becomings and unbecomings, resisting the threat of forgetting. desperately grasping, with exhausting resilience, at what we could lose if we do not turn to face the horizon. 〰️ sometimes i fear that my lovers hesitate to touch me. not because i am too fragile, breakable, but because it is obvious i find it unnecessary or unimportant. surely, i don’t crave the soft touch of lips on my skin, or the drip of spit down my thigh. fingers deep inside, churning and massaging. the aching becomes unbearable as it grows into some form of self disgust. believing the falsehood that i don’t yearn and if i do, it must be done quietly. my flesh recoils from fingertips unfamiliar to my own. not from fear, a recollection of past harm, but from shock that a hand would reach in genuine wanting. is this what i have accepted? the surprise in being a body of desire? encased in a skin that stretches over the essence of being alive? i shame myself in the sacredness of having a body, especially an unruly one that has settled in the margins. where self-creation awaits my decision to embrace the responsibility of difference, of vulnerability. this divinity requires commitment of unconditional love that tends to ebb and flow in my generosity. my compassion seems to extend only so far. even when i wish the earth would take me back and let me rest, my body continues to survive out of spite. maybe i should listen to the persistence of my cells. they must be fighting for something. i wish the wind would whisper its secrets. what if i allowed myself to discover again? what if i followed my guts blindly? pull them from my abdomen and watch them ooze toward the horizon? is what i wonder what i want? to live in hedonistic fantasy, amongst the trees, the sun catching glimpses of my joy? pulsing and grinding in ecstasy with lovers i hold close as we become one lump of organic matter? not aware of the indoctrinations i hold in my blood that i exist incorrectly, when there are so many ways to dwell in flesh? i count on the possibilities the future holds for i find it hard to grasp onto anything else. i push through one moment into the next, hoping my body becomes my own. a vessel of pleasure, kinship, and love actualized and ever evolving. 〰️
