Sifting through the sediment of my self I come up empty. I would like to write about anything else: lettuce and the ways it's grown, a map of the densest city in the world, the absorbency of microfiber, ancient monsters, new horrors, the misery of bare feet at the airport security line. I would like to write about anything other than myself.
Could we argue that it all begins from myself? This five-foot tall assemblage of soft muscle and hard bone, making my way through the world absorbing light and smell. Whenever I'm on a bicycle that's what I think of most: the waft of food cooking, car exhaust, the wetness of pavement after rain. Not the road unspooling ahead, or potholes I jitter over, not even what waits for me at the end of the journey, but the immediate here and now, a cartoon hand pulling my blissful whistling wolf in the direction of a windowsill pie.
Distracted, maybe, or fully present, so much so there is no thought of the future. The pitfalls, the potholes. The whatever at the end of the road. Maybe if I slowed down and examined what I pass too fast, veer off the road and down a side street, maybe if I opened another book instead of rereading the one I am always writing: the one of myself.
Who will ever understand my need for space, autonomy, and the forever-shifting equation of my desires?
Humming about Jesus, dreaming of exuberant devotion, the kind that fills your body until you burst obediently into song.
Somehow this is all I have ever done--typing into small boxes one by one.
Foul coffee in the morning, foul smoke at night. Clinging to a damp body steering a humming scooter down the street, I catch a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror and wonder if I've ever looked so sweet. So many past lives to reckon with, I look over my shoulder and there they all are, stumbling in our wake, catching up.
May they never. I talk about my past as if from a distance, as if my deeds and selves don't nestle inside of me like so many hollow dolls. Maybe this is so they stay asleep, as if reckoning with old versions of me risks invoking them into life again.
I'm moving forward into the future, further from my past, and somehow it still feels like I'm on the run.