don’t ask who’s influenced me. a lion is made up of the lambs he’s digested and i’ve been reading all my life.

of course, there had always been moments throughout my life in which i experienced, as every human has, what we call dissociation. i get absorbed by something, could be an image, a memory, nothingness, and i lose my sense of spatiotemporality. but it is not remotely the same as disembodiment because in the case of diassociation i give permission to myself to exist in that position, and instantaneously, i can get myself out of it. in my protoplasmic story, though i suspect it must have been traumatising for everyone looking at my body lying on the shore like a dead fish, to me it has left a sense of euphoria, like experiencing the world for the first time, that masochistic satisfaction of wearing shoes that are too small and your heels bleed. there is the element of horror that distinguishes them. a necessity to say, i am the inner skinless beast that never touches anything. and there is something in me that is always trying to go back, but to do so, much like sex, an activity directly linked to the experience of disembodiment, you need to be in a specific mindset. i’ve tried automatic writing, and despite falling into hypnosis relatively easy, almost every single time, i cannot really make out what i was writing, what i was trying to say, and i don’t like to think about it much anyway. i’m not interested in artificial ways because i fear it will take me there, and i would be very disappointed i couldn’t do it myself.

the first time it ever happened, it was a day in late august. i hope my father doesn’t remember. i was eleven at the time. before dusk, we would go free diving near the littoral cave. i am looking out of the window now, if i stretch my finger, i can touch it. we would discover shells there, the kind you cannot find on the shore or on the shallows, but we only ever caught the exoskeletons and followed the strange aquatics. once, a little octopus got wrapped around my hand, another time it was a wounded seal lying inside the cave, another a dolphin. underwater, there was a shipwreck, or maybe i imagined it. but i remember that day, i was trying to catch what we call the virgin mary’s eye. when i saw the little oval-shaped orange between rocks and sand and small hermit crabs, i was ecstatic. it was the first time i would catch one myself. i had to go back to the surface, take a breath and then go down again. the virgin mary’s eye is the operculum of a marine snail, a natural door that the snail uses to open and close its shell, and it usually falls off naturally at the end of its life cycle, shaped over time by the sea, the waves, the sand. the sailors believe it to be a symbol of protection. so, i went down. i looked around me, and i remember stretching my arm, but as i did so, and i could see myself doing so, i felt like i was stretched to infinity, and i was disconnected entirely from my physical form, and reality was hyperreal, and i was myself but not myself, and i felt a sense of complete and utter serenity. it was like swimming in the amniotic womb, touching everything which life is made of. i must have been there for quite some time, i wouldn’t know.

who untangles the yarn of this world ? who is the captain of the mountains ? who gives love and grace, and walks in the myrtles of hades ?

we were sitting in the living room, on the freshly polished couch. the house had the colours of rembrandt. i had cut my hair a few days ago and had fallen into melancholy. like a nautilus i was turned inwards, sinking into the leather. if i could i would disappear there, spiralling in the hollow of the cushion. dress up, ankles, gastrocnemius, knees, thighs, feeling the breeze up to my delta. we were waiting for the time to turn ten to leave. shutters open, windows open. it was dusk, the trees had taken the colour of the cypress, the sky disolving like a dream. you can’t see the sea from the inner living room, but i knew she was there. he was smoking one cigarette after another, stubbing them out on the silver ashtray with such a lyssic fervour to pull another and another. he was murmuring about picking his translations. i didn’t care. just let me sink into my couch and disappear.

we smoked lucky strikes and kissed on the alleyway by the square. constructions were over. tourists sat under dimly lit streetlights on some forgotten chairs drinking beer. music was playing far away. we were in the dark. i stepped on the edge, the windows behind me were sealed. i thought that i’ve never stood there or i haven’t had in years. (writing this now, i remember going up that building to a party, i remember the spiralled staircase, i had my first kiss that night to a guy that looked to me like paul newman, he had very blue eyes and he wore glasses, he took them off before kissing me) it hurts me that i didn’t think of it while being there. he had his hand under my shirt on my stomach and with the other he held a cigarette. there was a sudden eruption of cheers, we looked around. i made him throw that cigarette and stepped on it myself. he covered my cheeks with his palms. this gesture when done disingenuously can make me miserable. he turned my head to the side. i kissed him on the bone under the eye until we were so close that i just wanted my cheek on his cheek, and i hugged him, and sank my face on the slop of his shoulder. my lips touched his sweat, felt the very small hair on the back of his neck, the silver chain. that space between his skin and the metal was where i wanted to be, and it drove me crazy feeling the warmth then the cold. i needed both the extremes. i needed them both. i needed to feel them for the first time again and again. the cross fell on the back between his shoulder blades, i sensed it. i was peaceful in my nothingness. he was not him. he was the most human thing that existed with the two extremes on his neck and i was jumping back and forth, back and forth, and i wanted to feel it for the first time. i can’t explain it with words. no, i can’t. but i know it’s not the first time. his fingers touched my ears and that was enough to send me back inside. i’ve been trying to avoid him. he used to smoke the exact same cigarettes. like the one i stepped on, like the one he stepped on and i couldn’t find it anywhere as my eyes searched frantically the marbles, opened so wide it hurt me. and as he pushed his fingers inside, i felt so so disgusted. i shook my head. he asked me why. i told him not to touch me. why ? i tried, and i try, i always try. you have no idea what you did.

in my thoughts i make love to you, always. i see you in everyone i meet. i want the part that you share. i throw away the rest. i don’t care about anything. whatever i say never trust me. never trust me with anything apart from this because i am writing now and.. i take you all in. i want you to undress me. i want you to open me up all the way. hurt me a little. and let’s not tell anything new to each other. a million people are breathing with me tonight. know my skin is barely keeping me inside. my skin is barely keeping me inside. i fear my own femaleness. the whore of ancient greece, the whore of babylon for you. i fear my own femaleness. naked on the 17 knives. what you want me i will be. i throw away the rest. i throw away the rest. everyone else is nothing to me. nothing. to me no one means anything. i was thinking this morning of someone else touching your shoulders and i tried to imagine how it would feel to run her beautifully shaped nails over your nape. i ended up crying. would we feel the same sensations in love ? does she look you in the eyes ? does she kiss you where i kiss you ? and do you think of me when she does so ? i can’t stop biting the skin around my fingernails. it twists my guts and makes me anxious. how does she smell and how do you feel when your sternums touch ? i try to feel through her but i realise i am the inner skinless beast that never touches anything. i throw my face into the mattress and i try to suffocate myself. she will be there, i know. but for now, i want to do things with you that i don’t know how to say them. i sigh. i say your name. i want to swallow you whole until you come inside with me. a few nights ago, in the church, a man touched my knee and we sat at the wooden benches in the back and i had these thoughts.. i remembered him now and i am disgusted. everything is gone. it’s over. it’s over.