Epidermis (VI)

Epidermis (VI) Bodies fall into categories. Like corpses they drop dead, one by one, in tombs tunneling the red dirt of our desires. In the morning, as we both wake up, we wonder if by chance, overnight, our room was invaded by armies of ants, their tiny legs carrying the smell of earth back to our unaccustomed sense of smell. Only moments later we discover our dirty feet and realize that it had been us all along, and not the ants, that we’ve been crossing the night barefoot in search of justification. How long before they find the tracks we’ve left behind in the immense fields of the night? The dirt we have stepped into, hand in hand, was a trap and now we carry clay on our feet as a reminder of our escape. In this game I will be [body number two]. You will be [body number one]. Into those two numbers we’ll fall like corpses, one by one, in tombs tunneling the red dirt of their desires. We’ll carry that deep smell for the remainder of our lives, somewhere in between our ribs and we’ll keep blaming the ants each morning. Only then [our love] shall cross, undisturbed, the night once again.

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Epidermis (V)

Epidermis (V) The body is a phantom limb. It hurts when desire should hurt. The body is the orphaned child coming back to us, tied at the end of a string we name [our love]. It comes back to us at the end of every fear. The body is the child who sleeps silently at the feet of our bed on stormy nights. Once we reach the end of that string the body climbs into our bed, like a serpent, and settles, eyes half-closed, in between the sheets. We embrace it like parents embrace a newborn. Later on, as the night draws to a close, we can hear it whisper: I am the end of the string. And we desperately cling to each other knowing that the end of the string is not only the end of [our love], but also the end of other things. So we make love again to forget about other ends. And we forget about the body that hurts when desire should hurt, and think of how unfair this world is, and how the body sits, unalarmed, at the end of everything, how this defines my love for you, my longing. [Our love] goes as far as the body goes.