* Joan Didion
In my previous life, I was a child with blond curls, sequestered into various circular shapes. And in this previous life, I ate far more sugar and less vegetables and there were crushes on boys that never led to kissing only gift giving or phone call slurring. I thought I’d grow up to be a dancer or veterinarian. I was pretty sure I’d be dead before the regrets settled in. It’s difficult sometimes not to think about what once was. OR what I could have been what could I have been.
There are these tattoos that tell me stories when I’m lonely and need to remember something. Most of them arrived on my body during a time of need. Maybe I needed some ink to tell me something that my own thoughts could not. In this moment I am in need of some dirt on my ankles. Or a mosquito bite to remind me of the inhabitants we stole this earth from. Even though they bite and itch, it was often during moments of lust when I found new marks to scratch at. In this moment my limbs long to hurdle over a politically incorrect body. I want to force my fingerprints into my window to locate another way to stain glass.
This world is made up of was‘s. Humans who are marked and maimed by the past tense and how to move on and how to move on and how to move.
In my previous life, I yearned for a swingset or a tree house and a tent or a brother. But in this moment I have none of these. And how to move on and how to move on and how to move.
Aimee Herman 