Self-Portrait as Damaged Goods
by Logan February
You know, I was a muse once, but let’s not begin with history. Or anatomy, in fact. These organs have been bartered endlessly, going from hand to hand to mouth and lingering between teeth– this body, broken more times than the bone that resides within, each time a different person’s communion. I am the shriveled hallelujah that never leaves the mouth. Something blessed, a kiss goodbye with lips the color of a fresh bruising. No, let’s not start here. Not with anatomy. The true beginning is with language. I am common noun, boy, obsessed with accumulating adjectives that translate to sad. I am lost somewhere in the translation. My heart is a place with no native tongue. Look at that, we’re back again at anatomy. My body begs to be known. Charted. Let’s try geography because I need to escape. I am badlands, red dust, war-torn. I am torn. I am torn. It comes back to the body, cerebral shrine with no goddess. An emptiness. I am obsessed with not existing in flesh because two shades of smoke collided and gave birth to me, this nameless thing. All body and no soul— a seething brilliance. No, let’s not begin here. No, let’s not begin with the body. No, let’s not begin at all.
