[I don’t quite know you anymore]
Remember that time I suffocated you with two-ply? You hacked and gasped and chafed, but I left crumpled toilet paper against you all day because you weren’t tall enough. Someone else called you brick wall. I called you stubborn and flat. Evening is when Judy Blume taught me how to accentuate you. Increase your existence.
And then. And then when you started to exist, I wanted you away. We can wish for things, but I wonder how much we really want them.
When wishes arrive too late to the someone we are who we weren’t when we made them.
Suffocation continued but tissue became replaced by bandage. I tried to medicine you away.
The first time someone else touched you: I was eighteen. Jennifer. We contemplated each other’s softness and extended parts. Hers were bigger and she liked when I sucked and pressed and squeezed. Hers were an atlas and I often get lost so I studied and studied and used my fingers to trace every line and bump and formation of beauty marks.
I soon began to realize: no one really touches them the way I want them to be touched.
How to explain: use your ribcage more. Think of them as a bench and straddle and lean in. Please do not allow them to help you decipher what I am. What am I.
In the summertime, I let them float and fixate on the thin fabrics of old shirts stuck against them. My nipples rebel. Drama queens. I don’t mind when they grow erect; I only wish the land mass they extended upon were wiped away.
A new lover likes to defy gravity with mouth, wafting lips over nipples as though they are their own singular entity. This one pretends there is nothing else there and that body is a haunt of so many genders, why pick one why pick one.
Sometimes my body and I agree to disagree. I am fickle with my rules and regulations. There is no static or one way. I change my mind as often as my skin cells evacuate. So…..ask. Our bodies are made of invisible ink and there are so many guidelines that are too faint to read. I am unsure of what goes on beneath and above and around my bones sometimes. Even I need to ask sometimes.
Body, can I touch you there. Are you closed today. Are you on holiday. Are you in mourning. Are you choking on trauma or can I rummage you. Where can I touch you and tell me for how long and how soft or fast. What should I ignore or what can I call you today. What is your name today. Don’t worry about your answer for tomorrow…that may change. I’m just asking for right now; when I come around another evening, I’ll inquire again.
Aimee Herman 