Swimming away from the green horizon,
I didn’t know quite what to expect, although
I had an inkling of desiccation and light.

I sensed there would also be flowers,
a kind of spiral dancing among lavender
and apple blossoms I’d later equate with sex.

But all I knew then was a fluttering in my belly,
a rush of water and the quiet world twisting
and heaving in a way that was both monstrous

and fun. A new sensation in my belly
I’d call fear. Some form of tremendous love
pressed down on my sun-shaped face.

I came to know deformity. I learned
the perfect grief of leaving some perfect part
of myself behind forever.

What I didn’t reckon with was the shouting,
the fire-tipped calipers, the rigid god
who drew me into air like an aborted sacrifice.

My final learning was of hate, and it wrapped
its rubber hand around me like a net,
dangled me above the crowd, inverted

and shrieking for everyone to witness,
the ridicule and pity in their howls
a rasp against my brand new skin.

Categories: The Grind
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