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 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.