I’d imagine my way out of the womb.
First, I’d test every surface pressed against mine:
Every curve and industrial calculation that I’m up against.
I’d test the texture of my skin, concentrate.
If I belonged to one of those russets, then I would be thicker, netted—
If I belonged to one of those new ones, then I would be thin and delicate.
Concentrate.
I’m both inside and outside.
Inside, unseen, this potato is uncooked and I can feel its weight bearing on me—
Outside, I’m breathing air and lingering drips of water from the sky.
Below is a tree planted deep,
Yearning needs to feed.
Both a mother and a child—
Inside and outside.
I can’t define myself.
I can’t define myself until—
I remember the sculptor’s hands, washing away the dust.
Then my body was still alive.
I imagine myself, surrounded by all the blades of air: I wanted to get out—
now I am found and am captured
Unshielded, ready to be mortal. But
air and time pass me by,
drinks all the water from my skin.
I wither in a field of dried potatoes—
The wombs turned into ruin as I faced my final death.
As the last drip of moisture slipped through my cheeks,
My throat itched and I panicked.
I realized over time that I never possessed moisture at all—
The valley in my throat has always been cracked like a desert, sore and bitter.
I never smelled like a child of earth.
No matter how close you sniff, don’t ever expect—
the scent of damp soil or wet pebbles, faint butter or chestnut.
I’ll never fall into the abyss of crispy dryness and make kids laugh with a marvelous taste.
Death is an empty set to me.
Disappearance is nonexistent in my mechanical quadrant.
I don’t want to be stuck with the smell of oil paint
Permanently.
Spirits of minerals, ghostly layering, with each stain hideously hiding behind another.
Just like time pressed into stone.
Each layer buried sigh-slow grief of decay
Only I don’t smell the touch of mother earth.
I envy them, I’m jealous of them.
I’m a motherless child. My body never grew old from the nutrients of a womb
What a pity I’m never lost
What a pity I’ve never questioned
I’d imagine that it’s feels to be
peeled skin of a tomato,
Sorry, I am forced to define myself.
I’m a freshly painted wall.
Boring, right?