Self-Portrait
You are nothing. Your words drag behind you like the luggage of your failures. You’re an excellent packer; each memory folded neatly like special summertime linen that crease too easily. The space in between is large enough to squeeze in socks and frilly underwear or whatever else you deem necessary to fool yourself into thinking you are normal. But you’re not normal, are you? These hands of yours are appropriate in size but abnormal in feel. Smooth in some places and jaggy in others. Long, elegant fingers you could’ve once used to charm a Steinway the way exotic snake charmers hypnotise cobras. You could make each key tip-toe in rhythm if you tried hard enough. But you didn’t. You are nothing.
The luggage feels heavier than usual. You’ve overpacked.
You are not human. You have taken the shape of one; your form is undetectable even when shifting a thousand times when your mind escapes you. The holes in your face that you’ve passed for eyes give you away, sometimes. Blacker than anything, emptier than anything. They are dark pits that your spirit has occupied, dumping the memories you constantly folded so that every moment that passed meant you relived them. I thought you were an excellent packer. You are not. You are nothing. And when the storm clouds gather on the heels of winter, the ache in your bones will remind you that you are nothing, too. It hurts, doesn’t it, when your body tells on you? You rebuke your flesh and find God, but the pain beneath your skin when you imitate grace is sharp and you wince as the memories flood your eyes. Yes, it hurts. Walk quickly — run if you must. You are not human.
Your body harbours the mementoes of your past. Scars you could never get rid of, bumps in odd places that were never meant to be there. When did they defile you? Was this the origin of your nothingness? The moment you morphed into the human-like being you are now? You have dug tunnels miles long to search for fragments of who you were before. You have found countries within yourself, sovereign nations, oceans and fields and so much darkness. The darkness spread quickly, like wildfire or a disease, and you’ve tried amputating but what good has that ever done you? It has taken you over, turning you into something completely different. Yes, this is the origin. This was when you became nothing. It suffocated you with black hands and every bit of human oozed out, viscus with defeat and reeking of failure. God, the mess. You could never handle the mess.
The dreams are the most human thing about you. You close your eyes and feel things so vividly that it knocks you out of your sleep. Odours, pain, and dancing images of forgotten things burnt into your skull like a failed lobotomy. You dreamt about him sometimes. Remember The Drowning? The sea was your friend, a companion who rescued you with its briny waters by severing the umbilical cord that chained you to his misery. You dreamt of karma, ugly and vicious, the way your heart silently desired. Uglier than what he made you, uglier than what he was. Nothing on this earth could ever be uglier than the karma you dreamt of. You are no longer human, you are something outside of it. But when night comes and your eyes descend, the distance between you and your humanness narrows and you wake up abruptly with its sweet taste still lingering on your lips. This is your self-portrait. You smile.
