me and my body

do not get along.

we squabble

like snakes biting

at the scalp they emerge from.

when i was nine,

the boys on the bus called me

medusa,

because i was

"the ugliest creature

in the world."

i used to wish

they were right

so i could look them in the eyes

and turn them to stone.

when i was sixteen

i learned

medusa's story all over again,

a survivor, rebelling against

the men who tried to control her

and the women who tried to blame her.

and i found solace

in knowing

that i could survive, too,

even if it twisted me

into a monster.

like medusa,

me and the mirror

are enemies,

its surface threatening

to freeze me in place.

it is wielded like a weapon

waiting for the right moment

to sever my head,

my brain leaving my body

and taking refuge somewhere far away.

i have been told

i am ugly

i have been told

i am broken

i have been told

who i am supposed to be:

a monster,

deformed, misshapen.

but it is up to me

to decide

how i use their words.

i can treat it like a mortal wound,

nurse my grievances

in the darkness of isolation.

or i can turn it around

and fight back,

turning their expectations

to stone

so they can't hurt me anymore.

something about it was comforting, the way the misshapen face

seemed to smile in solidarity at our shared plight:

the battle of the deformed, although my fallacies were less visible.

the eyes bulged, in tandem with my envy––

eyes always seeking out reasons to be less than another.

or perhaps it was the cracks in the lips, dried out

like my own, craving the saliva of another to soothe me

and yet unable to find the time to cultivate such intimacy.

perhaps it was the shriveled ears, only hearing what i

allowed myself to hear; the opinions of like-minded individuals

making themselves known in the echo chamber of my mind

because i cannot stand to be wrong, but even more so

i am tired of people insisting i am wrong simply for existing.

maybe it was the fingers, crooked with age, a symbol

of my greatest fear: that one day my body will bow

under the weight of my mind, and i will no longer be able

to do what i love: writing, my fingers pressing down on keyboard keys

or scrawling in notebooks with the fragile tip of a pencil

that breaks if i put too much pressure on its tip.

more still, it could have been the gaping maw of crooked teeth,

sunk deep into rose-tinted gums, those enunciators of words

that come out all wrong and cut themselves on the edges of my molars

they bleed when i speak them aloud.

i watch the painting, entranced by the way it reflects me as easily as a mirror.

i grimace to see if the painting changes alongside me,

stick out my tongue and pull on my cheeks to see if it opens its mouth,

to see if its throat is just as distorted as mine, twins in our suffering.

a family walks past with their children, the mothers huffs––

"they really shouldn't show such disturbing things in here.

think of the poor children who'd have nightmares looking at that thing."

her daughter points at the painting and giggles,

"look mommy, that man has a silly face."

i couldn't tell if she was talking about me or the painting.

forget what you thought you knew. the world is full of mystery, glamor, intrigue, hope–– we simply live in it, watching it form and change around us, sometimes shaped by our hands, sometimes unexpected, purely natural. oceans hide ruins of lost civilizations, buried treasure, forgotten people, dead loved ones, families. the earth hides multitudes, elements we might not even have names for yet, the bodies of people who walked the earth when god hadn't even been invented yet, all held together by a molten core that we've never seen before and probable never will. we cannot even comprehend our own brains, those mysterious lumps of flesh suspended in water and powered by electricity, responsible for movement and thoughts and dreams and personality, responsible for our entire identity–– and yet, a mystery. a blackbox, the contents of which we might never truly understand.

learning our place in the universe might be overwhelming. look the stars in their eyes and remember that they do not look back, they are too far away, living their own lives billions of miles away. they look at their own stars, and the cycle continues on and on, past the edge of the universe and into infinity.

about time we look at ourselves and answer the question we've been asking ourselves: why am i here? here, as in the place? perhaps a house with a mirror, or a public bathroom, or simply a window as you're walking down the street and you make the mistake of making eye contact with your reflection and it beckons, promising answers that don't exist. why am i here? we were not meant to know the answer. we merely fill in the blanks with a meaning that satisfies us until the end, or we borrow someone else's meaning, or we spend the rest of our lives searching. it matters not, the world is here and we are on it, whether we like it or not, whether we know why or not.'

broken pieces never fit back together perfectly, there are gaps in the glass where the surface was reduced to powder. we can seal the cracks with gold but the meaning of the original is gone, replaced now by a metaphor for healing and trauma. we can never return to the way we were. does that mean we never heal? or is healing something else, something deeper? perhaps we are not meant to be the way we were, perhaps this is the universe's way of telling us we need to change. and we will change, for better or for worse. the universe wills it, and gives no thought to the lives it destroys.

bodies, mere collections of atoms with empty spaces in between, and yet we call ourselves solid. bodies that bend, bodies that break, bodies that grow, bodies that crumble and decay. everything has a body. bodies of water, the trunks of trees, the welcoming hands of the clock. everything has form. nothing is solid. even mountains move, with time.

ending the story is always bittersweet. finality is the one thing that terrifies us most and also what soothes us. when we are gone, we will no longer be responsible for what happens to us or anyone else. but when we are gone, we will no longer be able to control what happens to us or anyone else. it is the ultimate surrender, finally giving in to the tides of fate. and it sweeps us away.

revolution begins, a clash of ideals, rebels seeking freedom, justice, reparations. we are all the rebels, whether we admit it or not. we are all fighting each day, and most of the night, until one day we wake up and we've lost the war, or we defect to the other side in shame, and the rest of our lives is merely watching ourselves live from afar. life is a revolution, one that we are unable to win, but that cannot be lost.

grasped the truth at last, have you? have you found what it is that makes us real, that makes us human, that makes us alive? we are infinite, we are broken, we are strange malleable forms that twist under the cruel hands of time until we find our past selves unrecognizable. we grasp our own selves and hide our identities in the palms of our hands, carved into the grooves and callouses so deeply that even the most skilled palm reader cannot decipher.

as odd as it sounds, there is no difference between you and i. both of us are lumps of flesh suspended in cerebral fluid, salt and water, fueled by electricity, piloted by a conscience that we are only half aware of. the bodies we are in are mere happenstance. our genes and personality are mere side effectsit is not what we are. it is merely a machine piloted by a parasite. a complex, dysfunctional machine. with opposable thumbs.

successful, who defines success? is it wealth, happiness, fame, remembrance? is it flowers left on your headstone decades after you passed, or simply who owns the largest headstone? can you define your own success, or must it be decided for you by a council of strangers? perhaps the greatest success is simply existing. we won a race before we were even born, and each day after our birth we have avoided millions of lethal accidents only to end up here. alive.

though our story is nearing its close and the sentences grow slimmer, know that even the smallest chunks of text can contain the greatest meaning.

everyone and everything comes to an end, of that we can all be certain. perhaps one day, even death itself might come to an end, releasing the souls of long lost loved ones back onto the earth to roam once again, to live their life as they should have lived it the first time. perhaps they will live their life exactly the same way as they did before they

died.

He would flinch when someone tried to give him a high five (the program he was in advocated for positive reinforcement, including positive physical interactions), but he couldn't remember the reason he was afraid.

He would be filled with rage every time he saw a skinny blonde girl, but he didn't remember the drug addict mom that gave him that hatred. He didn't remember the dozens of other blonde girls that he had killed, all as a result of his warped childhood, an unholy combination of innate mental illness and abuse.

He still had the violence. The rage. The trauma. He just couldn't remember the source. He would wake up from nightmares sweating and afraid, but couldn't picture the face that was haunting his dreams.

He would be escorted from place to place, but he didn't mind. It was all he'd ever known. The only thing he couldn't understand was why so many were afraid of him, why so many people called him names.

He saw a therapist for his anger. The therapist would nod and hem and haw, but when the thirty minutes were up he was still angry and the therapist was fifty dollars richer.

Sometimes he'd explode and punch walls or break his knuckles against the metal paper towel dispenser in the bathroom. But he never hurt anyone.

When he was seven he saw his mother stab a man in a parking lot. The man was her dealer and demanded a higher price. She got pissed. She took his entire stash and blew through it in four days. The man was never shown on the news. It taught the young boy that murder was simply a part of life. It also taught him never to get between Momma and her drugs.

When he was twelve his mother flew into a psychotic rage and pushed him down the steps. He broke his ankle and couldn't move for two days. He laid there at the bottom of the steps and learned to shut off the pain. He still walks with a limp, but he no longer remembers why.

He had only ever known violence. So why was it surprising that he grew up to become violent? And yet, even without his memories, the feelings were still there. The fear. The anger. Now that he knew more than just violence, it was too late: his habits had already been learned, his childhood had already been lived and then forgotten. To truly fix him, they'd have to start from conception. Seize him from the womb and set him loose in a world that taught him love and compassion instead of vitriol and violence.

Erasing the memories wouldn't erase the experiences. They still happened, and he still feels its aftereffects. Only now, he has no rationale for the way that he feels. And no one can give him any answers.

One day, this lack of a reason will cause him to snap. He will kill again.

Until then, he will keep flinching every time someone tries to give him a high five. And he will keep wondering why he is so afraid.

as a child i would promise myself

that if i was ever rich,

i'd donate most of it to charity.

when i received my first paycheck

i donated most of it to charity

and stored the rest away

in case of emergency.

when i received my second paycheck,

i figured my obligation to charity had already

been fulfilled:

so i gave some to my family.

college funds, illness, meals out,

trips to visit,

and stored the rest away

for a rainy day.

when i received my third paycheck,

i figured it was high time that

i treated myself

so i browsed

online catalogues

dyed my hair,

built a tiny house

maybe got

a surgery or two,

and stored the rest away

because you never know.

when i received my fourth paycheck,

i started worrying about

taxes,

after all, more and more

of my paycheck

was being taken.

i hired someone to file them for me

(let's be real, no one really

likes doing them anyway)

and stored the rest away

because you can never be too careful.

when i received my fifth paycheck

i hired a lawyer

because my family

was starting to beg for money.

they wanted my house, my car, my generosity

as if i was nothing more than a bank.

and it wasn't just them––

my friends, my significant others––

i was reduced to nothing more

than the number after the dollar sign,

and stored the rest away

so they can pick my corpse when i'm gone.

when i received my sixth paycheck

i sat and stared at it for a long moment

wondering what i could do with it

now that i no longer had anyone left

to spend it on.

i'd begun to pray

for something bad to happen

just so i'd have a good reason

to spend my money

on something worthwhile.

but nothing happened, so i

held my breath

and stored the rest away

for a day that might never come.

when i received my seventh paycheck

i started looking

for adventure

something new and exciting

to fill the void inside of me,

searching for some space odyssey

or underwater exploration.

the danger

filled me with energy:

a reason to live, a purpose.

so i booked a trip

and stored the rest away

for the next adventure.

when i received my eighth paycheck,

the world got smaller.

adventures taken,

families funded,

charities built,

companies bought.

i had done everything there was to do

and stored the rest away

for the next life.

when i received my ninth paycheck

i wondered if it was possible to buy

salvation,

if i could buy companionship

on my deathbed,

or if i could buy immortality.

i wondered

if everyone were immortal

would we pay to die,

always looking

for what we can't have?

i started preparing for my inevitable end,

and stored the rest away

for another person to take my place.

when i received my tenth paycheck

there was no one left

to cash it.

revenge is a dish best served cold

with a dash of salt

that burns on the open wounds

of your enemy.

i waited until you were down

to kick you,

the dish had long since cooled

but the salt

remained––

and i was determined to use it

most effectively

by coating the soles of my shoes with it

and pushing it deep

down your throat––

perhaps now you will think twice

before putting salt in my food again

now that you know

what it tastes like.

He types a word with his fingers,

They cling to the keys, desperate for the sensation

Of creation

That is so quickly lost

When fingers hit enter

and a lifeless creation forms in its wake.

He calls himself a creator

Even as his fingers cry out

For release

From the prison of a prompt.

His fingers were once called digits,

Now replaced by numbers

Like paintings made of binary code

Instead of human hands.

His hands are stiff,

Paralyzed by the fear of being imperfect,

Content instead to hide behind

The fingers and the brief strings of words

That substitute for brushes and paints.

The paint is digital now, and so are the brushes,

And the fingers keep typing the words

Aware even as they do it

They they are dooming themselves to the same fate:

Becoming digital.

But he is beginning to grow frustrated,

For as hard as the digital machine tries,

It cannot replicate

The unpredictability

Of the human hand.

the pills are red now, not blue

they rattle in their orange cases

as i empty them into their new container.

the case is printed with letters

of the week,

not like my old one:

that has faded.

the pills have changed names,

but their function remains the same

even as everything around it changes.

my pillow resists my head

where it has not adjusted to the weight of my brain.

the blinds don’t close all the way

and my underwear doesn’t fit in my drawers:

it sits

in a packed bag under my bed

that never used to be so far off the ground.

the pills are red now, not blue;

they stick to the sides of my throat as i swallow,

forced to take one at a time

to avoid choking on the multitudes

that threaten to overwhelm

my intestines.

it feels like there are more of them

than there used to be,

always growing and multiplying

alongside the years,

changing shape and size and color,

like hair grown out and shorn off,

clothing worn and outgrown,

lines marked on the wall

where you grew an inch last year,

always awaiting that blessed day when we at last

reach our final form.

the pills are red now, not blue––

and the world has changed colors with them.

Creation:

coarse cues collect collateral catastrophe;

callouses created, coexisting crafts.

counterfeit collapses, contructed corporeal.

Completion:

cowardice consumes,

conclusion coming carelessly,

conjuring counterfeit concern

can coexistence come?

creation, creator, cornered

complex conjectures captured.

Collapse:

crush creation's campfire,

cooling coals

creator's contrition confounds,

confidence crumbles.

Creative Calamity.

willpower

is something i crave.

it is the idol

i cannot tame,

the god that is too

volatile

to worship.

my will and i

are locked

in a battle

of wits:

will it

rescue me

from the pit

of my own bad habits,

or will i push it down

in favor of my own

selfish, short-lived desires?

my willpower may be ironclad,

but it is as much a prison

as it is a suit of armor.

which of us will prevail?

me,

or the me i should be?

i should be

stronger

as we all strive to be,

a tool of my will,

invincible in its hands.

and yet,

i do not crave immunity,

content to struggle against myself,

caught between immortality and death,

it is an easy choice

made impossible

by the mechanizations of my own mind.

which of us will prevail?

perhaps we will both win,

a harmonious victory,

lifted by our outstretched arms

gravity no longer tethering us to the ground.

or perhaps,

we will both lose,

lost in the great chasm

of in-betweens

and halfhearted promises

of change:

this will be the last time.