- The Xtraneous Files
- Posts
- paper thin & growing thinner.
dear left ear, dear right ear, dear two fingers on the pulse,
Yes, it has been a long time. Yes, I've felt the seconds and the minutes and the hours and each iteration of time has attacked me with teeth — thin needles — tattooing promises (broken) and dreams (not recalled) across my sternum. Why do we always describe spiders as skittering? There are a colony of them living under my breastbone. They have made webs between the gnawmarks.
I am thinking about the space of The Underwater. In the way we think of subways or caverns as The Underground, I am enraptured with the spaces laying under water rather than earth. The Underwater can be found in any body from bathtub to backyard pond to lake, but I am thinking of The Underwater which belongs to the ocean in particular. Why the ocean? Because I am attracted to the salinity. Salt, which purifies. Salt, which induces emesis. A forced cleansing. Some words are better out than in.
I like to imagine myself in The Underwater. The sounds of the ocean are heavy yet cushioning, a weighted blanket for my ears. It swaddles, envelopes, submerges, wraps up. I give myself over to The Underwater and it does not acknowledge me. There is no kiss upon my forehead, no stroking of my hair. I love The Underwater because it does not care. It holds. And, in The Underwater, I too do not care. I too hold. I become vessel. In submergence, the cracks seal up.
I wonder, is this is what the womb sounded like when I was still held within it? I remember when I was a kid I loved resting my head on my mom's belly and listening to the sounds of her gut. In Beasts of the Southern Wild, Hushpuppy listens to heartbeats and she knows, she knows, she knows. I think I was trying to do the same. There is something there, a thread about eating what you love. That the only safe spot is tucked up underneath the soft flesh of our bellies. There are some poems that hold your hand in your local grocery store — they know this well.
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