if only my carapace would contain me. shall i drift away then,
leave only raw cavity shrouded in dark? there are no lights inside. if we
barricade the entrances, seal the exits. retreat softly to the interior, the
caves of the deep. will we be safe then. will we.
iggy with his big soft eyes looks at me and wags his tail. he is
horse-sized and gentle but can bowl me over with one excited chestnut leap. walking
him in the gloaming with fireflies and sweet grass smells and my heart surges
with a foreignness i could only call hope. in shame i am relieved when it
passes and my steps trudge again.
i need space inside my shell. how do i explain? like furniture with
empty drawers, like clear tables, bookshelves stacked one deep. space to turn
around in. i need to shrink, to fold up in small corners. to get as far from
the outside as possible. an intra-exoskeleton retreat.
i am finding it hard to find words. they're in there. they're
stuck in the stagnant cluttered muck inside me. i cannot extract them whole. i
don't know how to clear it up in here. i know i've gotten vague and
melodramatic but i cannot apologise. it's all i've got.
if only there were a way to keep everyone from looking when i
move through the world. asked yesterday by a concentration camp survivor, what's wrong with you, don't you eat? and while i was strangely
flattered, still. too ashamed to have been actually seen.
sometimes we are seen but not seen enough. not seen correctly.
for all our guises some see through. for all our honesty some don't see. and
where does that leave us, the self-less, the empty? transparent gut, opaque
limbs gesticulating in space. evasive, camouflaged brain, inscrutable face. we
have ten thousand cloaking devices but none of them match. and for it we are
all the more conspicuous.
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