#*stumbles

transcript:

today, i peeled a citrus for the first time.

it was a clementine, small and saccharine like the cheeks of a child. my fingers weren’t quite sure how to go about it, and so my nails slowly chipped away at its flesh, thumb dragging a surgical incision through the skin and tearing the edges away to reveal a ragged window to the insides.

with the trepidation of a bird on the palm of a stranger, i plucked out three slices —

good things come in threes, or so i’m told —

and, juice dripping down my knuckles, set my eyes upon the snarled stem tethering what remained: two slices inside staring me down, the glistening mirror of a pair of lungs.

like recognizes like, and so my breath caught in my own, and i thought: this is humanity, messy and sweet and a tangle of nerves beneath it all, and perhaps —

just perhaps —

everything in the world is joined by this common thread.

and when i at last sank my teeth into it,

it tasted like myself.