I stand in the bathroom, needle poised,
hip frozen with pressure from
the leaking blue pack, its chemical ooze
colder than ice, hormonal sap
about to slide in deep by my own hand
into the bruised cushion of my skin.
I can barely reach, my spine
twists around to the back of the hip
where the bruises from yesterday,
from the day before and before, speckle
the width of the lumpy apple of flesh
flecked and pale, the underwear
pulled out of the way for the
plunge. Someone rattles the door.
After dinner and coffee,
napkin specked with crumbs of
vegan chocolate cake, I had waded through
the watery swamp of the kitchen,
its mop-water floating with
specks of onion peel, cabbage rind,
bread crumbs and omelette crust,
like remnants of a civilization
like lumps in bright orange vomit.
I’d climbed past cold sliced artichokes
and cottage cheese in trays, opened
the vault of the freezer where the sign
says, “Think of your pillow. Slam
Hard.” With my full force
I pulled the closed legs of the door open wide.
I curled into the chill of frozen air, my skin a chicken
preserving for the fry, and I had taken
the icy blue plastic like an explorer
stealing an arctic treasure.
Now by the toilet I press
the one inch 21 gauge diagonal-
tapering point into my skin—it punctures
the surface with an elastic sproing.
Leaning on the other leg
to loosen the muscle, I expect to feel
its penetrating point, but I feel nothing, nothing
but numb coldness of skin, glacial
expanse of elastin lump of myself
on one leg in the bathroom, diners
outside laughing, holding hands,
squeaking their benches in pleasure.
I pull up the plunger with twisted fingers of one hand
to check for the blood rush. I am twisted at
an angle we rarely see ourselves,
like a bride alone with a single mirror
trying to see if her back looks fat
in the scooping open silk of
a plunging neckline. I press
the plastic tip in slowly until it stops; oily liquid
enters oily body. Inside
and outside no longer hold clear, and I
remember the writer who tells of the skin
against skin as first proof of the
limits of self, but for me, I meet
my edges through metal and green
plastic lined with milliliter markings,
measuring my solitude in the locked
box of this bathroom. And I pull
the needle out again—flesh clings to it for a
moment, not wanting to let go, like a tongue
to an ice cream cone—leaving
the philosophical realm, holding the hole
shut with a swab of alcohol. Pants at my knees,
I hop, dance and quiver,
so the bruise will be smaller,
they say, as I have done every night
for these weeks since I learned
I would do anything, jump up and down
with my pants unzipped and falling,
an Afro-Brazilian incantation of stomping,
as the medicine seeps and spreads,
reaching toward the place where you are,
anything at all to help bring you
here to this world
so you can touch
your own hand, so you can hit
your pillow, hold to my spine
and my hip, climb glaciers,
vomit, and love.
Miryam Sas is a writer and professor of comparative literature and film & media at UC Berkeley. Poetry.
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