Oct 2020
I – circular formations slide behind my eyelids and leave me dizzy, swinging like a snake in a tree. temptation comes to mind and thinking of the garden of eden, i wonder this: does it matter that it was eve? did it make any difference after all? do we really delude ourselves to believe that without eve the apple would have remained uneaten, and the world untainted by sin? i picture myself growing from a man’s dissected rib, only ever a fraction of the life i was stemmed from. snipped like a cutting and grown into a potted flower. created to belong. not to nature, as i would like, but to a man. do you think that snake just told eve to eat the apple? or did he tell her more. perhaps he said the taste of the apple would fill the empty chasm in her chest where identity should lie. perhaps he said the apple could allow her to be a person in her own right. and can we blame her? for biting into knowledge? a woman who was born into ownership dared to taste power. and we stomped her into history as the villain.
II – i become tired of this space where birds can no longer fly. i want to be free. i don’t want to have a body, i want to float around in space as a ghost. shame is such a human emotion. i want to bleed in technicolour. i want to be free.
III – and so i sit here eyes sombre and cold, and i stare out into the candy coloured skies. the clouds look so close i could almost taste them if it weren’t for the blood in my mouth. and the green of the trees calls to me in a language i don’t speak anymore. somehow i see their words echoed across the skyline. calling me home. i know it’s too late. i go back inside to fight the tumbleweeds in my head. It only hurts me to remember.
IV – i look down at my hands. for a fleeting moment i hate my petite body, and i want to be a monster with spikes and huge sharp teeth. i dismiss the thought, lay down on my bed, and dream of creation. i dream of being the ocean’s daughter. fierce and strong with salt-hardened hands and strong swimmers legs. born of the sea, running to the trees who call to me. it won’t happen now, but i can dream. i wake, and see the sky shouting in pastels to me and the trees echoing in muted jewel tones. i run out to them and for a split second I feel alive, but it passes. but it always passes.
II – i become tired of this space where birds can no longer fly. i want to be free. i don’t want to have a body, i want to float around in space as a ghost. shame is such a human emotion. i want to bleed in technicolour. i want to be free.
III – and so i sit here eyes sombre and cold, and i stare out into the candy coloured skies. the clouds look so close i could almost taste them if it weren’t for the blood in my mouth. and the green of the trees calls to me in a language i don’t speak anymore. somehow i see their words echoed across the skyline. calling me home. i know it’s too late. i go back inside to fight the tumbleweeds in my head. It only hurts me to remember.
IV – i look down at my hands. for a fleeting moment i hate my petite body, and i want to be a monster with spikes and huge sharp teeth. i dismiss the thought, lay down on my bed, and dream of creation. i dream of being the ocean’s daughter. fierce and strong with salt-hardened hands and strong swimmers legs. born of the sea, running to the trees who call to me. it won’t happen now, but i can dream. i wake, and see the sky shouting in pastels to me and the trees echoing in muted jewel tones. i run out to them and for a split second I feel alive, but it passes. but it always passes.
-b.g.
