Out of one body comes another.
photo by Levi Lunon
Inside my left arm is a woman. She is tall and freckled and blond. This woman may play saxophone or harpsichord or the triangle. She has climbed mountains and a few humans. Perhaps she likes to whittle or darn socks or engage in various forms of origami. She has an allergy, but has yet to discover it.
Inside my right thigh is a man who measures over six feet. He is wide and brown skinned. Count his tattoos. Smell his mother’s cooking on his breath. He likes pants without underwear. He snores with his mouth open. His nipples are small like whispers.
Hiding in my belly is a another, with gender unconfirmed or blurry. This other collects beach glass and shadows. This human hides in movie theaters, eats sandwiches wrapped in tinfoil and remains until the credits drop.
Behind my ankles is a woman with an accent muddled and musical. She hugs hands and kisses poems into notebooks. She is curved like a weeping willow.
Sometimes I want to forget each human that has ever tipped me over, flood themselves inside me, kissed skyscraping structures toward my larynx. Sometimes, I just want to unfold. Reveal each wrinkle that has ruined me. Some of them don’t even know that I was in love then. Some of them don’t even know that I am in love now. Some of them have disappeared, so I carve maps into poems and search. And I search. And I hunt. And I wonder. And I miss.
There are other worlds that exist beyond what our eyes can reach. In these lands, sadness is a color that is visible. Love is food eaten with each meal like decorative parsley on plates. Poems are made of fabric, worn on bodies.
Gonna call myself largest living land animal.
Gonna call myself plant-eating mammal with prehensile trunk.
Gonna describe my mind as long curved ivory tusks.
I want to be called a monster because that leaves room for a metamorphosis to occur.
Aimee Herman 