if this is anguish, what direction leads to its opposite.

“I have brushed my teeth.
This day and I are even.” 
………………………………..Vera Pavlova

Dear SS,

I’ve ransacked your journal. The library sold it to me for one swipe and you’ve already taught me that skin can be trusted.

You call love suicidal and I am reminded that I die a little each time I feel something.

Each time you write about sex, you label it as a knockoff of pleasure. I try to think of the last time I felt and how good one can get at pretending.

SS, all I can think about is rice these days and how it fills me in a way no human ever has; what kind of person does that make me?

And what is it to be tired the moment one wakes. How urgent is blinking.

Are we forever connected to everything we give birth to: sadness. a child. a sentence.

You ask: what do you think about all day? Moisture. Employment. How many lies I lied about. The shape of the last human I loved. What fears I fear tonight. Rehearsal.

SS, if you were beside me, I’d ask you where your focus is and if you believe in the forgery of bodies.

You wrote, “I fear I have never used my body” and I fear mine has only been used.

You mention delicacies and I’d remind you that survival is one as well: particularly textured, sensitive, susceptible to illness, expensive and tricky.