threshold exhumed

“The hunger is something you dig a hole in yourself to bury.”          Kazim Ali

All of this was ripped. Part of something else.

There are words, which used to be part of other things and now reside as this.

There is a pelvic blueprint, reminding me that even an x-ray can lie.

There is a swarm of vegetables shaped into a heart, symbolizing healthy love.

There is a body that can not be called male or female, rather satisfied and comfortable.

There is earth.

There is an Italian cookie. A newspaper. Modern Love.

There are trees and water. There is sun. There is a city bridge. There is a fortune. There is hope.

This is my vision board. This blue square of paper is a guide of desires, goals, dreams.

When I think about what I hope to manifest, I feel overwhelm. For so many years, I have buried my hungers so deep behind bones, caging them in.

Who/what am I waiting for.

I cannot stop with just this paper. It is a visual, but the rest must come from me.

I hold my left palm in such a way that it sinks, fingers lift up as though being pulled by invisible string. My palm is a cup I can sip out of. It is a bowl I can eat from. I can subsist on whatever fits inside my flesh. Parts of my skin, dry, pulls. There is a web of creases.

I am growing stronger on the outside, but if I were to photograph my innards, what musculature would gather?

My vision blurs, shifts, squints, takes in.

What do others notice that I do not; what do I notice that others can’t.

I want to see myself in this paper. Hybrid body. Floatation device. Loved. Traveler. A climb toward.

Do we ever reach that moment where reflection matches what we want or think we see.

Tell me how to get there.

what it means to feel what it means to feel

Unravel what has happened: death, four lost limbs that belong to another country, hunger, a mother that sips pills as breakfast, fear, that time a staircase lost its angles and tumbled away, silence, that memory that exists like a movie trailer with gaps and voiceover and who really knows what is really real anymore.

dance because it is all that is left to do

A woman risks paralysis as moan of body leans toward pavement/ Dancer catches her boarded-up bones before the crash arrives.

In an air-conditioned movie theatre, a huddle of purchased attention spans.
Black licorice unpeeled from non-recycled materials slithers into mouth.
Laps press together to make room for more ticket holders.
Woman complains of noisy rocking chair. Calls it a bed without the comfort.

A German enters wearing illumination and a cigarette. She is projected from three dimensional memory.

How to structuralize gender?

the strength of illusion and mobilized bodies/

What is the rhythm of water?

to dance with the vigor of a flood eating away an entire village/

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On the other side of a movie screen, a man recruits women for sport. Chronicles their measurements and pairs them up in size/breast/genital order. The next day, he is found with his tongue removed due to improper fondling. How necessary are cages for men who behave like improper beasts. Must we dance them away with the grace of carved heels plunged into their chests. Why do some chromosomes have the rhythm of murder weapons.

Later on, a woman resembles a church bell, leaning back and forth with paper cup clutched between palms, empty as her belly. Coins have no nutritional value and (sometimes) acknowledgements are enough to last through one more day.

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If she is sad (enough), carry her. Transform spine into tabletop and utilize strength of knees to travel her away from the sorrow.

Death does not need to be planned, traced with chalk and blood clots, in order to occur.

Sometimes, it is just as easy to slip one’s self into splintered chairs or window frames or dining room tables and….and….disappear.