“The rocks. They carry the chronology of water. All things simultaneously living and dead in your hands.” —Lidia Yuknavitch
There was that time I ate darkness. Choked on the bones and swallowed the shadows of fascia. There is marrow in these walls and they can be confused for rock or congealed strangles. Carve away the gypsum board, lick out the asbestos with fearless tongue and wait for the numb to arrive in waves. Swim inside the secrets of this wall. Study the ghosts; ask them where their names derive from. Lose skin from loose nails, scraping away the cells of your childhood. Do not mourn for wounds; they are meant to be a vessel for newness to occur. Find yourself in water. Question its smell but not its origin. This is the perfume of rot. Embrace the pain of a comfortable drown. Pretend it is possible to melt away the parts least preferred. There is no gender in these walls. Body is blank, blurred and deconstructed; so what do you want to be now? Lose yourself in beams. Find meaning in the knotted wood. Dark patches like freckles or moles or reminders that sun has wronged you. There is no weather inside these walls, nor is there an Internet connection, so who will you tell about this. And if you keep it concealed, does this journey still exist?