This is the story of my future. I found it in the heel of my palm, just before the wrist starts, in a place I’d never noticed before. A small line of flesh that informs my whole hand, and at the same time resists the actions of my forearm.
I am standing with my bare feet planted in dirt, and from that brown I rise, feeling taller than I really am. My arms are turned slightly outward, my shoulders are still, like a hanger hitched to the base of my skull.
Nothing can touch me, and everything can touch me. I’m ready.
I know how to be quiet. I know how to rest.
I have dead people’s bones in my neck from corrective surgery, and a hole in my skull where a tumor was sucked out. My body is decorated in the hieroglyphics of scars, small white moons, angry chicken scratches. I’ve carried babies, lost babies, nursed babies, and cried. Paint runs through my veins, not blood. Cobalt blue, when inside, alizarin crimson as it meets the air. Yellow ochre fills my head.
I move forward from here.
