observation

a sheet of metal under the skin. limbs freezing up, words disappearing quickly into nothing, sometimes I don’t know if i was truly traumatized, or was I acting it out? the only audience ever in the room, the everlasting presence of a woman sobbing under the bed, anything else other than that I don’t remember.

As soon as possible, as soon as possible, a dead young person equalizes to a failed investment, the quicker you pull away the better. A steady decline without bumps, the image, tainted blue, purple, red, brown, on cold pressed watercolor pads, a locked room. On and on, then every story merges into your own, vivid yet it isn’t there at all. That disgustingly cliche Chinese tune, the Buddhist hums, all fake, all for show, the music she plays on her speakers. A different person. Selfishly I wish I had been raped, age of nine, corner with a book in my hand for silent reading, had I not walked away I would have more things to draw about, more questions to answer. a hundred fifty seven dreams recorded down, shopping malls, running fleeing from one place to another, then I realized I am normal, nothing is wrong with me at all. What happened yesterday, the day before that, last week, last year, the year before that? Backlight of the keyboard fading into black-Enter, come in. Somehow if you read enough of an author you start to adopt their memories, as if I can skip the pretty words to recite Eileen Chang for her. Only when i need the world to turn overwhelmingly beautiful I can’t bring a single piece of the past back. Broken promises, foreign porcelain tiles,  mold and separated milk, half clear toned yellow half gelatinized like custard, spiders behind the curtain, the curtain sun shines through everyday, shutter binds that closes all day, fingers off the keyboard, airplanes, strings of light sliding through the crevice of each pieces, paint. All i know is to hide this part of myself. to monetize it, to televise it, to dissect one’s own body under the bright daylight, each organs so delicate and pink and red and brown, glossed up with blood, displaying under the sun. thoughts, knowing the exact texture, how much pressure i need to cut my mouth open with a scissor, the blades getting stuck, all imagination, the way drain cleaner would burn and be sour and bitter and floral if I had drank it, all imagination, all talks no action, “how to become mute, what household product would harm the vocal cord” trying, wanting to shut myself up so hard but now for a future, to live i have to put all i have on display. Yesterday, the texture of a blade slicing the skin open, pushing down, the defense of bones, dragging, sliding, pulling, all imagination of the texture. I don’t think I have aphantasia. I’m completely normal, so there’s no need to continue talking about the fake things I do to impress my own thoughts. How dry it is here even as a sea side city, how humid that town was in the summer, a thin layer of sweat, marks of eyebrow pencil rubbed down by the hair. When I look back there isn’t even a trace left, a footprint in the sand. Everything’s clear, this is all normal. and only the human body, thin skin, the curves of ribs, pointy collar bones, sharp hips, concaved abdomen, breasts like holding a soft fig, which you so desperately try to trace with your pen, body of the adolescence, an outside observer. before it all, there was birth, climbing out of one woman, another, soon to be molded to anything, the birth of the human skin.