read this, and weep (if that's what you need).

dear claw, dear horn, dear crack,

A senile fox sits at the edge of the woods, wondering to themself: "What does it mean to act like someone acting? How does it feel to try to become something becoming?" Gnats are burrowing into their skin, and they feel it happening, but continue to sit. The flies will come soon. It is too late for them to become, they have already fallen into past tense.

A rabbit runs through the trees. They feel warm breath on their neck still, the fur still matted. The lingering scent of decaying flesh seems caught in their wound, as if they smell their future. As if death has begun to sink in through the gash on their neck. Already, they are halfway there.

A dog snuffles against a pile of leaves. They are trying, desperately, to pick up a scent. It is their job, and if they cannot do their job, they become nothing. And if they are nothing, then their nose will not find any hands full of scraps, no hands soft against their fur. If they are nothing, then they will scatter like the leaves.

Something has been beaten out. Against the rocks, beneath the slap of the water. Something pulpy and missing. The townsfolk know better than to linger on the docks. Beneath the old boards, there is something sinister. Or, not sinister, but misunderstood. Or, not misunderstood, but simply missing. All the pieces keep falling through the cracks. The puzzle is always incomplete. no one asks questions, because all the words are gone.

The trees are creaking. All the old growth has softened. Bugs have made trails through the trunk, all inside out, all wrong way up. The fleshy bits all eaten off, the hard bits chipped away at. Not a tree. A body. A tree like a body? The ravens are not quite sure. But they watched the robins all leave and never return, so they don't fly over the blighted land. The bluejays stop squawking and fall silent when the wind blows in. The ravens sit in lines and watch, waiting. They are never sure when the waiting stops and something new starts. The line shakes in the wind. They smell something foul but do not turn. One by one they will fall to the ground and the air will be filled with the sound of their gagging. Has anyone heard a bird dying? It is not a pretty sound.

There is a thought, laying in a meadow. This time, a body that is not a tree and just a body.¹ They are soft and silky and shiny. The thought expands in time to a heartbeat. In and out and up and down. They fill the meadow, moving in wider and wider circles. The tall grass shakes and the blades rattle like swords. The sky is dark and the clouds are bright and the field is aglow with something. Something missing. Something not yet beaten out. But it is still too late. The thought is floating away now, blowing up on gusts of cool summer air. Soon, it will be tangled up in the branches of a tree like a balloon let go of long since. This will start again, and maybe this time it will be different. Some knots will untangle, and some must be cut loose. 

1 The year is 2023. I’m editing and annotating my old letters in preparation for their rewelcoming to the world.

Compare this ‘body’ to the description of your new skin in part six of the story about you and the girl who lives on the moon. (link)