Things we do, often in the bathroom that we try not to talk about in public, especially not in polite circles.

The body's smell of dying
small parts in small places
changing ownership without currency
flesh and its lackluster lust
that keeps us coming back

The oldest society
clad in dust alive
such a delicate system
not unglorious against
modern comparisons,
and yet

morning breath
the smell of me before a shower
a layer pressed into sheets of
cells spent in their division
in their dying

white is the color of death
on the surface of skin
the body recycles
the ugliest of vices
and you blame your genes
you blame the weather and your appetite
for dead things

we live 80 years and
counted lucky and
still we think we
know everything at 20
when we don't even pay attention
the flesh of every day

Yeah I wrote that.

Maybe it's because I was an only child. The only body I saw was my own. I don't remember being bathed in a tub with anyone but childhood girls during sleepovers, where at 8 we concocted special potions of shampoo and conditioner, potions that made us into powerful monsters. As a preteen I kissed the corner of the porcelain tub and dreamed it was the shoulder of a boy, any boy. I looked forward to breasts like other girls wait for the day they are allowed to wear makeup outside of the house. The blood from being broken in, the fear and the pain of growing, the pain of never being young.

I watch my body in sickness, in the stumbling throes of healing. I've wreaked havoc on my body and mind, terrified that I was pregnant, that I already had cancer from smoking for 8 years, that I was due in early at any moment. I still find snot interesting. I know the waft of my own unclean smells from all regions, and I can't say I'm repulsed by them. I know what goes in and what will come out.

Dying all around me. And yet I keep on going. I try to find life in the middle of all, trying to pay attention to it and ignore it all at once. Neurosis.

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