I once poured milk all over my body for a performance. I cannot recall its intentions, but it led me toward another bout of lactose intolerance or another love affair– I cannot remember which. It was thick and the smell remained for hours post-scrub. From the corner of my dairy-drenched eyes, I noticed a human wearing blond dreadlocks, inconsistent knots spewing out of her scalp or brain. She had to be a visitor, I thought. No one exists like this anymore, I thought.
*
Sacrifice can be found in early morning wake up calls to clean up beaches swarmed by devastation. Blame the wind this time. Blame the humans who do not recycle, who do not chew before swallowing, who do not cook their food properly, who kill without concern, who focus too much on Facebook, rather than faces and books…next time.
To be no(body) is to swarm a room without a notice. To flap wings known as arms, all scratched out like liner notes. To bend knees and straighten and bend and straighten until thighs are hardened like soul. To be able to notice a man whose belly breathes outside of himself, sitting in the corner with his shirt untucked, with his thoughts all slurred. To be no(body) is to stare without being asked to stop.
*
Mourning in the morning looks like this: cup of coffee to my right, Bon Iver all around me like dead skin cells floating (which I cannot see, but feel like ghosts landing). Sunrise pushing light against the leaves outside my window. There is rust on those leaves. I want to lick them to feel oxidation gather inside me.
*
When I speak (lately), only lies come out.
A truth: After the hurricane, I collected corpses. Leaf corpses. They were light enough to carry home. To press inside Audre Lorde’s book of essays. Their veiny ends popped out and yesterday, I carefully rescued them from compression and noticed their colors. Blotted red. Red like forty-seventh layer of earth from below not red like my hair. One is yellow like hydrated urine. One is spotted green.
*
I once poured soil all over my body for a performance, with thin plastic tarp below me to catch the earthworms. I wanted my filth to be visible. So I mashed the dirt into my skin. Forced it beneath my fingernails. Rubbed it into my hair. I swallowed it. The grit remained inside undetected cavities. Sand and rocks and organic additives. Then I took a sponge, waiting in water, and wiped it all away. My body became mud. A puddle of sludge. My bones were a stage of earth and water. I was nude and more honest than I had ever been before.
*
Sometimes when I breathe, planets blurt out.
Aimee Herman 