a little love
the mirror in classroom 6b shows a version of myself that i might be able to love, or at least one i can grab ahold of & pull back down to my lap where i can nuzzle her, show her the affection she screams for on train platforms when everyone has an objective they need to fulfill & noise canceling headphones to drown out the desperation of others to protect their own. some clutch it tightly. some let it fly out like the wishes in pandora’s box, unleashed. maybe i want to be leashed. ew, no not like that. it’s not a kink! & that wasn’t kink shaming! i just want to be metaphorically your possession. there’s not even a “you” anymore but i write to my future as if they exist, as if they’re here, sitting in my palm. as if they are mine & i am theirs. & there’s no collars or handcuffs or piss on the fire hydrant. just a little love. an inkling. just a pinch. inchworm. bit by bit. i don’t dare dream of anything bigger than what can fit in my clenched fist. but there are microscopic universes. so can’t i have something tiny that is all mine & all encompassing? my ancestors’ whispers remind me i come from a long line of genes that found overwhelming love & all i can do is whisper back a fading “hi” that’s laced with so much shame & distrust in who i have allowed myself to become when i was too tired to actually shape my own present, that i don’t know how to keep moving forward. & yet i keep moving forward. it’s a stumble, you know? awkward & floppy & sometimes backwards. but it goes. it goes. it goes. & i go. i go. i go. a carousel, i always come back to the same ruptured stomach, the lining eaten up by the last bad decision i chose to make. but we stitch it up & begin again. life is cyclic even if time is not. but maybe it is, what do i know. i’m not in the business of touching the fourth dimension. lately i’ve been in the business of touching roses, the thorns & the petals, the soil & the roots. there’s dirt under my fingernails but i don’t file them off. i don’t chew or bite, just skip stones in the puddles on the train tracks. i find ways to turn my desperation into something beautiful, maybe even lovable in the right lighting. even if the push up bra is only an illusion. i miss my old face so much i would carve it in marble if i was a sculptor. i’m embarrassed to wear this face now & i want to remember what it was like to love this body so maybe someone else could love it too. instead, we wage war & recite the old scripture. so i twirl in every window, every mirror that i pass, hoping i can spin myself back into worthiness. i want to have the best of me, embodied. want my reflection to step out of the mirror in 6b & rebecome me. i must rebecome me.
