Complete Indifference About the Body and Having One & I Know My History
Complete Indifference About the Body and Having One
Oh the girlboy squalor of it
are we still talking about this
let's pull down the statues and replace them with the spine stolen
from the natural history museum stolen from the ground stolen from
the empty space between my collarbones and my pelvis
this flesh sack just appeared and I had nothing to do with it
everyone has pronouns except Finnish people and police officers
I was moving past the need for embodiment
never really thought of it
until I realised eyebrows are the harness of your face
when you come into my room to ask me to shave your head
I end up buzzing my undercut back in
the body is
disgusting and nothing
restores your faith like the pantomime of healing
the danger was always behind you the body puts it behind you
you said isn't it weird that instead of collarbones birds have wishbones
and we snap them for luck
I said yes
all this and the tyranny of structurelessness but tell me who feeds the kids
no really, who feeds the kids
I Know My History
Then:
My grandad used to say there are two types of men in this world: those who hit women
and those who don’t. Once you become a man who hits a woman
you can never go back to being one who doesn’t.
Do you ever think about door hinges?
How so much privacy rests on a handful of screws?
Turning points usually come in the form of a singular action:
the meeting of two people,
a sudden recognition of the self,
the opening and closing of a door.
A spinning coin falls suddenly onto one of its faces.
Now:
To decide the teams we flip a hat. There is a global pandemic, so no one carries cash,
though we play a contact sport. I make one mistake and it snowballs into two.
Once upon a time, we would end on two truths and one lie:
1) I have another person’s name tattooed on my chest,
2) I’ve felt a jaw smash against my fist,
3) I walk away without a scratch.
