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My Body in Parts

Exploration

Body, vessel, frame, figure, meat suit, flesh prison – temple

built from soapstone, decorated in ink and memories,

scars from growing, taking up space,

bent into more agreeable shapes

each increase in visibility and incentive to hide

stretching out and not recognizing

myself in what others perceive –

A body and mind united in trauma.

 

A Mind, Full

I hear ‘body mind and soul’

as if it’s supposed to make sense

as if I am a puzzle with three pieces and not

a rubik’s cube with a thousand sides,

a paradox in itself,

nothing but carbon and electrons

somehow creating a perpetual existential crisis

simultaneously creating and suffering its own pain.

Agonizingly sustainable.

 

Palimpsest: Diagnosis

The monster has a name

and its name is Inescapable

I’m its hoard and its claws are stuck in me

Was I not careful what I wished for?

Someone to hold me tight,

to whom I am precious.

What was freeing at first has become a burden

I have traded in doubt for inescapable certainty

Now the symptoms are no longer annoying insects,

swatted aside, distracting but not in focus

The spiderwebs I tear through on my way ahead

have started to cling and burn

— every symptom a branding iron

every pain another claw in my body

strengthening its grip.

 

Sensation

I got lost in my mind but my body is an anchor

I make it my home through experience

Gratefulness at the gifts I receive

from my ears, the sweetest harmonies,

from my eyes light, made endlessly diverse as if by some magic.

I am grounded

Digging my toes into wet sand

having my hair pulled back by a strong wind,

its cleansing cold stripping away the fog

that tends to cling to me.

And oh the tastes!

The satisfaction of familiarity,

the actualization of a craving even better than imagined

the ecstasy of surprise,

when blandness is but a faint memory in the face of a kaleidoscope of flavour

Not only the taste but the greedy pleasure of a

true mouthful

cuntful, assful,

the build-up of a pocket dimension

starting in the stomach at full density

stretching out into all-encompassing tension

and a release that brings me closer to a blank slate than anything else ever could.

 

Tonight, Late: Stage

I am a body, trying to understand itself

I am a body, standing on a stage sending signals

to other bodies, trying to explain myself

I take what is hidden

and bring it into a shared space

and I do not want to hide this body

that provides a space to be occupied, and thus shared

It is this body that provides

a voice to speak of itself

and to itself, a physical, somatic prayer: in visibility to thrive.

 

Pat was listening to Árstíðir performing Heyr himna smiður while writing this piece.

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16/01/2019 Pat Nehls

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Maria’s Literary Rewind of 2018 → ← London Article (think of catchy title later)

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