Wanderlust

i had a nightmare of a future where at red lights and stop signs, an ad would play across the stoplight. advertisers had sold it as "encouraging drivers to pay more attention." i woke up covered in thin sweat, grateful i don't live there yet.

i am playing video games with my girlfriend, make a twitch stream. i am good at makeup, make a youtube. i am good at crafts and mildly funny. tiktok and instagram and brand deal paid partnership.

commodity! make yourself a commodity! in this economy if you land the dehumanization of advertisement that's a godsend. get that bag! chase that coin! good luck paying off your student loans! make yourself a billboard. karl marx crawling in his grave, paint yourself as capitalist hellscape. show your followers. be terribly alone. build an empire of bone.

is this your body? when you were 11 you had to start shaving your legs because other girls found it gross you were hairy. when you were 12, you had to stop wearing v-necks because of your chest - people were staring. your mother didn't let you dye your hair. your first boyfriend makes you dress up in skimpy clothes for him, then hated when other people coveted you. what you wear and how you present determine whether or not people find you funny or annoying or arrogant. other people get to determine if you are pretty, a court of opinion so loud it blots any good intent.

when is the body yours? magazines and instagram and tiktok endlessly advising you to "take care of" (starve) your body as if it is a weed. you must hack and slash at it, defend yourself from its wanton desires. it is a shameful, greedy thing. it is more like an art piece. you are keeping it or being kept-in-it.

you try to language it to your therapist - it's not that you don't recognize yourself in the mirror, it's more just that the thing that is in the mirror - it isn't you. that's why it's so easy to take apart: you're vaguely aware of the shape, but it feels like you are an animal hiding in the back of this cavern, snarling.

obviously you're like stuck in it. it often hurts a lot, buzzes with pain and a strange numbness. so it is your body when it's painful. that makes sense. otherwise - how many times have you been told to save yourself (your body) for marriage. for someone else. you are just borrowing it.