Glimpses
::3:: trying on roles, reiteration of mother, so bored and serious
This month, the three of us lifted “Shapeshifter / Fluidity” from the luminous The Wild & Sacred Feminine as our metaphorical seeing-stone over the (some old, some new) bits and ends of our lives (re: mastitis/ parenting on airplanes & in urgent care/ Big Conversations), and we wrote. To each other, and now to you. Maybe you, too, have asked, are asking, are reeling from the answering: what if we just burned everything and started over? Our entries appear below each of our symbols.
At the precipice of burning, and the last day of antibiotics—
Jenni, Gabby, & Marie
What if we just burned everything and started over?
It warms and I say to my baby, “this is Spring.” I say to her, “Season’s change.” I enjoy introducing her to earth like my little alien spirit. Even though she is still fat with wisdom, wisdom that hasn’t been dressed yet, veiled and married off to Here. My sister asks again, how are you? I don’t know how to answer that. I am incessant loop of meals & moods, light shifts. Acute sensations, hip twinge & iron gums. Small sufferings, small thrills. Shadows of my dying herb plants on the wall & your screen time was up 8% last week & a lingering lean into my husband’s neck up against the wall, the one with no outlet cover yet—one breath & already a to-do list revision. Sunday sun making the same shapes on the couch. How am I as in/ proximity to me [?] / or/ proximity to child as in/ always in proximity to / is she now/ other [?]/ Is she other and me, now / halved [?] / Is me, now, expanded and therefore/ how am I/ in this body [?] / And in hers?
Body a whole new landscape, I should not fixate on this but it is my job? To listen, observe, wander within it. The new pressures and toxins of need & neglect. The wild orange pockets of oxytocin, the rind of stigma. A subtle new fish scent that follows me. Listen, I write mostly about the ways I am miserable. It’s the misery that needs the transmutation, that’s why. But the truth is I am on fire with a love never before felt. Sometimes I stare at this creature and think it would be worth it after all. To lose myself for you.
I do not write about sex. This feels like admission of guilt. If I don't break through this shame it will live on to belong to my children. I will hand it to them, quietly whispering this is yours, this is real, carry it close. This secrecy is unfounded. I have grown two humans. Every day proof of my sexual action walks out into the world, and yet here I am squeezing into a coffin expecting to feel alive.
I turn on a song, something from years ago about bitches, blunts. I start to cry, which mortifies me. Not the crying, but the trite catalyst.
A student of mine once told me she loved Kodak Black, but she was a feminist. She only loved him for the beat. I said no you don’t. She smiled, how we do when we get caught in the lies we tell ourselves. I said I listen to Kodak Black too, and it’s not for the beat.
Doesn’t it feel good? To be the one objectifying, fucking, fucking off? To embody the archetype you do not own?
We are trying on roles, slipping into them and practicing. He says my only job is to say what I like and don't like, in this space I don't need to decide anything, plan anything, analyze anything, I just show up and say yes or no. My job is to steer toward pleasure and embrace it.
I need this job laid out, the boundaries redefined. A few nights ago I didn't listen to my no, didn't communicate and hid behind what I thought I should be. In the heat of things, my nervous system showed up in revolt, arm seized up and throat closed off. Tears flowing into creased shoulders, I kept apologizing for messing everything up and worried for two days that I'd be unlovable after this.
/reiteration of mother /of women who /give their bodies as whole /homes /soon to be discarded shells /soon to have to pick their parts up atoms of a scattered mosaic /ever in motion /ever wanting /to be / to pause /to not be /judged /scrutinized /plucked of rights to own their own /walls as if /as if /as is /as ever was
Muffled waking cries through the ceiling. Traffic whoosh through open window. September pretending to be deep summer still & the cat wanting to get back inside. What is that specific feeling of being on the couch all day long and not knowing how to peel the parent out of you? Stagnant & gutterstuck with clog of melding leaves. What is wrong with the duct of me. Too young to be rusted.
I have the strangest dreams. I hear my name being called in my ear. I think finally, hello dream, breaking like a stroopwaffle over my seeping brain, all the good gooey stuff finally going to sweeten something. Please, another dimension, leak into me, I’m so bored and serious.
teeth n tits teeth n tits crowned teeth and rock solid tit and rooted roof of a tooth under a filling from 12 years ago and tongue and tooth and too long nails and wrinkled lips and filled up stretch marked tits with ragged chewed nipples pointing all askew
I open my throat, expose the green vibrating beneath. This is hard I say, how do I hold these tender things? Please help I say, my breath can no longer reach me. You chose this, they say.
If you feel called, lift the hag stone, share a glimpse of life with us.