I find myself swollen from thoughts of beauty:
what is beautiful/ how to define the identity of this world and its stain on bodies.
Wednesday:
Sunburnt man on Flatbush and Fulton does sit-ups on a folded blanket and I watch his abdomen form into six-pack containers.
The need for flattened stomach goes beyond gender and home consumption.
Thursday:
As I wait for 3 train at Nostrand station, notice a young woman with pulled back hair rising from either side of her head like brunette fireworks. She is covering up her face with cover-up. 3 train arrives; we sit diagonally from each other and I watch. Several shades of grey eye shadow layering onto eyelids and thick swabs of ink called mascara to lashes and more shadow to eyes, a liner now. Lipstick, three layers and colors and notice that they shine now.
What hides beneath all these sheets of wax and powders and glitter?
Are we actually hiding out beauty or just coloring it in?
This morning, I close my eyes and find my body. Music pours out of cylinder-shaped speaker box and I think about bursting bubbles with my body. There is a Dancer beside me, far enough to hear but not feel. She tells me to choose a part of the body to notice. Eyes closed, I lift my right arm. It pretends it is in water. It pretends it is newly born. It pretends it is smooth.
I turn and turn and turn and turn and turn and turn and fall. I wash the black padded floor with my skin.
Notice your ribs, she says.
I finger them. They start to shift toward the left, then right. My hips grow jealous; they get involved too. Perhaps there is a kick and another turn. A collapse, then rise.
(I think) I am dancing.
She wants to see my text; this is far more comfortable than my body.
We talk about beautiful.
I tell her I used to live in a city where bodies were like robots, hard and mechanical. Thin. Uniformed.
I want to become fluent in the language of my body, so I can speak faster and fondle the eroticism of articulation.
(this is a process/ beyond single night performance/ this is a movement)
Aimee Herman 