Morning flesh

 Daddy! Daddy!

Waiting for inspiration, my child screams, "Daddy!" and runs away when she can't watch tv. It is loud and quiet this morning. Not like yesterday's peace. 

Staring at my beautiful naked body, I am reluctant to put on clothes because then I wouldn't get to witness how beautiful my skin and bones and flab flesh are this morning. I'm having trouble not loving myself. I would rather sit and stare at my body alone, hearing excited whimpers from the other room, someone seeking attention... I am not really alone. But we two Bed-Girls here are naked and we don't want clothes.

"Mommy, can I whisper in your ear?"

"Yes."

"But first can you tell me what I'm about to say?"

"Yes."

She wants "toy tv".

I am still enamored by my legs and my skin and my chest and random small tattoos that remind me of all the points of transition in my life, each one marking some major change.

So I can look down at my body like a map of my life. Like a treasure hunt. 

Goin' on a treasure hunt, tri-infinity marks the spot. Three lines down and a question mark. A pinch. A squeeze. A tropical breeze. Now you got the chills!

A spot on the back of my neck I marked with a circle.

If you press the button...

Still enamored with my breasts (soft and childlike, new, and breathing with still recovering post-breast milking) and the necklace that hangs above them. Blue kyanite my dear friend gave to me. A rose quartz pendant. I tied them to an antique chain that usually holds a beautifully carved piece of dark jade.

A rose.

And in between the subtle body of this moment, not letting go of how I feel so complete and perfect- I scroll through internet articles and smush my ideas of different arts-based interventions into one big thing and try to remember that I didn't really do.. I didn't really do what I was supposed to. I did none of it. I am doing all of it in my mind and sometimes it doesn't bleed back onto the paper.

[brain bleed brain squeeze crying always from my left-lung abrasion and my copd]

[crying always when I squeeze to the left, twist to the left, and feel it.. it feels like father abandonment and motherlove the kind made of dry desert dirt. Do they love you? Why can't I hug them stone sculptures? I hug her often. I hug the naked flesh of her pale body. I hug her flesh with my flesh and we often sleep next to one another and take baths together. But HE- he just holds my hand and the closest I ever get is holding his arm and leaning my head upon the side of his upper arm while we walk trails.]

Am I still talking?

shaky hole(hold)

thorn or rose

in my side

some sort of bruising

of sand

sandals lost in the ocean

my father's true home

something like that