the shedding began because i refused to admit to simple truth
the body does not lie
i'm fine i'd say
a piece of me floats to the ground lands between the crevice of wooden floorboards in my apartment i'm fine the body sheds and betrays the privacy of lies i'm fine solitude does not exist in a body that is dying the body does not lie a physical representation of the grief you cannot admit still goes to bed with you each night
the body will shed until it is seen this is the body’s response when it fears being forgotten when it does not take well to the fact that one day it will stop shedding and instead be still the body does not lie still it sheds and leaves evidence in trails hair tangled up in bed sheets making abstract art on the slick surfaces of shower curtains and on the seats of subways in cabs on crinkled paper covers floating in puddles on the sidewalk sticking to everything in an attempt to compensate for its own impermanence screaming this is how you will be remembered
in pieces
desperately trying to reattach everything
that's fallen away from you
in pieces i obsess over the ways i am thinning
out of existence
in pieces is the way the doctors describe the symptoms of living as a disappearing act the body does not lie i try so hard to will this statement into nothingness as if this too is my magic trick
i pull together all the loose strands of hair from between the floorboards they are coated in dust and still i make them into a bouquet and place them in a vase beside an ever-growing medicine cabinet
shut the door face the mirror
i am in pieces
i'm fine
the body does not lie
and in the process of shedding the body aches to show me how loss
facilitates loss
in nervous habit i run my fingers through the tangles and they get caught between my fingertips i pull the strands clean off my scalp and keep pulling like the loose end of a string from my favourite sweater i pull until i am unraveled do you see me? will you pick up these parts of me and throw them away do you? angry at them for clogging the drain angry that i left the water running and started a flood
i am thinning—
do you see me?
my body is not trying to betray me but
the body does not lie
