i. do they exist
ii. do we know that they exist
iii. how do we know that they exist
iv. how do we see (our) bodies (properly)

how to write a manifesto for a body! for the body! bodies sink like the breaths of a baby when a baby is held by a tired mother whose face is gaunt and whose ribs are the sharpest leaves anybody has ever seen.

i want to walk through a body of woods. i want the woods to be full of leaves. i don’t want to have any limbs.

in my head i can taste the trees that are in this body of woods (and this body of woods is full of leaves). the trees stretch out the way your body does atop my bed. i still don’t know if you belong atop my bed. when we walk i’m jealous of your calves, of how puffed out they are. when we walk i want to pick you a cactus. i want to pick my body something. i want to pick it apart. i want to pick it lying in the grass.

i’m sorry but my mouth is too full of candles for it to touch yours;
i’m hoping that doing this will make me quick-witted, the way you are.
i’m sorry too that i’m not quick-witted already.

the way a body is: it’s a road, like this one that i’m on now, visiting you. i’m taking a bus again, like the last time i went to see you. the last time i saw you you had a bruise on your left cheek. i never asked why. you never told me why. whenever i picture you i picture you with the bruise on your left cheek (sometimes though i forget and instead it ends up on your right cheek). when i see you i think i will be disappointed because you will not have the bruise on either one of your cheeks. in an ideal world there would be one long bruise trailing all across your body. maybe this would make you mysterious.

i am trying to picture our bodies together again, trampled by our flesh in the rain. where you live there is so much rain.