I wonder where it goes when it’s checked off the list, dropped down the drain, kicked off your foot, brushed through the stems of your hair as it blooms into curls or bald or grey.
What about the kisses? Sloppy and sincere.
Or the edges of bars where young girls lifted their shirts and young men sashayed their waxed chests that would have wound up in graves ten years ago were it not for medicine/resilience.
What about the glue traps your daughter trashed before little rodents sunk into them.
What about glue sniffed or worn away, unsticking what should have stayed stuck.
What about altars? Unwritten words, unspoken prophecies, goddesses we can no longer see or hear or pronounce but still dare to feel, especially at dusk or dawn, in the middle of an orgy or rave or church service or deep in the bowels of a dusty library.
What about my breakdowns, the scars on my hips, tummy, forceps, or the marks around my mouth reminiscent of silent screams, screams that cried HEAR ME and were too afraid to be heard.
There’s Oscar slaps and Twitter trends and gospel songs chasing our dead home.
There’s tension (inhale),
and exhale (release.)
There’s the womb of the earth that links us all, to our pasts, our mothers, our futures, our failures, to the passions that lead to purpose, and the play that leads nowhere, for play need go nowhere, and is exactly where it needs to be.
This body is my right and responsibility. The light gives me headaches. My mirrors are windows, for mirrors are too cruel in their exaction. Windows blend me into infinity, muscle out those petty details attempting to overthrow my natural, complete beauty, the mostly female with pinches of masculinity I used to call ugliness.
Fires freezing, floods dying of thirst. Your mouth is the road to the universe. Your heart is an open door. I’m knocking, and so are your ancestors, the tales (and tails) of animals and roots of trees, stardust and ash and the descendants of your dreams ready to mate with your ideals.
This is where it all goes, for we are the channels of the world, frequencies on the galactic radio dial, and if we would all tune into love, maybe then we would be found, and held, and heard.
C E Hoffman was born, gave birth, and tried to die in Edmonton, AB (not necessarily in that order.) A grant winner and cat lover, they’ve been published widely online and in print since 2010, and edited Punk Monk Magazine since 2012.
Their #OwnVoices collection SLUTS AND WHORES is available via Thurston Howl Publications, and their chapbook BLOOD, BOOZE, AND OTHER THINGS IN NATURE is forthcoming from Alien Buddha Press. Find more weirdness at cehoffman.net
Angel Rust 