Fishing line.
Apr. 23rd, 2008 11:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jacktellsliesCare of the new piercing, the new tattoo, and the ever-changing exhibit I call my hair, I'm anointed, rubbed with lotions, oils, salts and fine soaps at holy hours. I was beginning to feel like a temple whore: there was something for which I was being made ready.
My massage therapist is in her early sixties, newly engaged, and tattooed with snakes on her arms like a circus woman. It suits her: when Cirque du Soleil comes to town they go to her. She's touched every one of them, and they've threatened to carry her off in their goblin caravan. And she's an old witch: she divines by bones and meat. Specifically, mine. The first time I met her she told me that I lift more than I ought at work, that my allergies were particularly troublesome that season, and when I'd bleed next all by touching my foot. I told her that she was spooky as well as brilliant and promised my undying devotion immediately.
The trees in this town are still feeling flirtatious. The ritual of their blooming feels decadently infertile in this town. Where would their seed take root?
I find that I don't often enough have cause to mention that the witch as she was, ahem, conceived in the middle ages was a sort of anti-mother: milk-thief, blaster of crops, midwife to the stillborn child and the secret abortion alike. She was insatiable but not desirable, and aggressively infertile. When she gave suck it was to atrocities; she withered all that she was meant to birth. What a wonderful fear she was. Ladies, I toast to you when, on occasion, I borrow my young roommate's milk. And local friends, I do keep emergency birth control on hand should it ever be required. I'm all for upholding tradition.
But as for me, I've taken a sacrament of copper: my false nail of the true cross, a seed that will become the World Tree. I sacrifice myself to myself. Now, earth, hold what earls once held/and heroes can no more; it was mined from you first/by honourable men. Make a mine of me. A hoard. A grave. Bury in me a tool that I call forth when I work, my missing part. Make of me a grave that I may know what it is to dig in the earth when graves are mine to make.
I laughed with my doctor even as he hurt me. My relationship to pain is altering. I have my cantankerous spine to thank, as well as my experiments with the use of certain drugs, and some other endeavours to break open my stubborn head. I no longer fear it in the way that once I did, which allows me to approach it with a certain curiosity.
I mentioned my new modification to my sister last night, and she nearly gagged. "But! Why?" It never fails to impress me. That casual acquaintances are newly shocked every time I make mention of my roving tastes is fine. I am spectacularly queer, after all, and they can't be blamed overmuch for insisting on taking things on appearances. But my family have met some of my partners. Dearest mother, kind sister, I'm frightfully sorry to worry you, but I'm afraid that my Kinsey scale still resembles an eight-pointed star. I suppose I should be just as shocked and concerned as they that once every few years I engage in an act that could, I suppose, get someone pregnant (a nervous passer-by, perhaps?) but, as I see it, that's all the more reason to be cautious. If this counts only as another sculpture of my flesh, a symbolic protest against the spawning of new humans, I'm pleased enough. In place of squealing apes, watch what wonders I shall birth into this world.
My massage therapist is in her early sixties, newly engaged, and tattooed with snakes on her arms like a circus woman. It suits her: when Cirque du Soleil comes to town they go to her. She's touched every one of them, and they've threatened to carry her off in their goblin caravan. And she's an old witch: she divines by bones and meat. Specifically, mine. The first time I met her she told me that I lift more than I ought at work, that my allergies were particularly troublesome that season, and when I'd bleed next all by touching my foot. I told her that she was spooky as well as brilliant and promised my undying devotion immediately.
The trees in this town are still feeling flirtatious. The ritual of their blooming feels decadently infertile in this town. Where would their seed take root?
I find that I don't often enough have cause to mention that the witch as she was, ahem, conceived in the middle ages was a sort of anti-mother: milk-thief, blaster of crops, midwife to the stillborn child and the secret abortion alike. She was insatiable but not desirable, and aggressively infertile. When she gave suck it was to atrocities; she withered all that she was meant to birth. What a wonderful fear she was. Ladies, I toast to you when, on occasion, I borrow my young roommate's milk. And local friends, I do keep emergency birth control on hand should it ever be required. I'm all for upholding tradition.
But as for me, I've taken a sacrament of copper: my false nail of the true cross, a seed that will become the World Tree. I sacrifice myself to myself. Now, earth, hold what earls once held/and heroes can no more; it was mined from you first/by honourable men. Make a mine of me. A hoard. A grave. Bury in me a tool that I call forth when I work, my missing part. Make of me a grave that I may know what it is to dig in the earth when graves are mine to make.
I laughed with my doctor even as he hurt me. My relationship to pain is altering. I have my cantankerous spine to thank, as well as my experiments with the use of certain drugs, and some other endeavours to break open my stubborn head. I no longer fear it in the way that once I did, which allows me to approach it with a certain curiosity.
I mentioned my new modification to my sister last night, and she nearly gagged. "But! Why?" It never fails to impress me. That casual acquaintances are newly shocked every time I make mention of my roving tastes is fine. I am spectacularly queer, after all, and they can't be blamed overmuch for insisting on taking things on appearances. But my family have met some of my partners. Dearest mother, kind sister, I'm frightfully sorry to worry you, but I'm afraid that my Kinsey scale still resembles an eight-pointed star. I suppose I should be just as shocked and concerned as they that once every few years I engage in an act that could, I suppose, get someone pregnant (a nervous passer-by, perhaps?) but, as I see it, that's all the more reason to be cautious. If this counts only as another sculpture of my flesh, a symbolic protest against the spawning of new humans, I'm pleased enough. In place of squealing apes, watch what wonders I shall birth into this world.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-23 03:46 pm (UTC)you are, clearly, mutable sculpture of the best sort.
you should be published, and paid in canadian funds.
http://www.queerwriters.com/queer_writers/2007/10/calls-for-submission-second-pe.html
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-23 06:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-24 12:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-24 02:48 am (UTC)according to http://community.livejournal.com/specficmarkets/ (but in a locked post):
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-24 04:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-23 05:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-24 12:27 am (UTC)(Bah. I dislike leaving clues as to my biological sex on the internets.)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-24 01:14 pm (UTC)(Booo internet clues!!)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-24 05:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-23 07:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-24 12:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-24 03:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-23 09:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-24 12:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-24 04:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-24 03:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-24 04:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-24 07:22 pm (UTC)An eight-pointed star...that's the Seal of Solomon, isn't it?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-24 07:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-24 07:28 pm (UTC)