For Holding Things
“Want some cake?” I look at the clock to make sure it’s still 7am.
“No thanks.” I say. She’s gone mad, is off her rocker.
“Is that what you’re having for breakfast?” I ask.
“I like cake in the morning. Well, I like it anytime really.”
I guess that’s what happens when you’re 78. You eat cake for breakfast. You’ve spent so much time worrying and fretting- so much time working to look perfect that you lose sight of what was never all that important. You make advances towards really living. Getting so close to dying does that.
I make myself some granola and yogurt before wandering back to my bedroom.
I stare in the mirror hoping it will say something new. “Cover your shoulders baby girl, cover the Jello that are your arms.” I obey. With a mindless, numb existence I obey. Maybe one day, I ponder, when my bones stick out real good- maybe then it’ll all be okay. The pictures in the magazines are cruel, half a human at best.
A child who knows their place in the corner, covered in shame. That’s who we’ll be if we keep at it like this. If we keep letting them win. them, the scales at our feet, the scales over our eyes. If we can’t press up against what isn’t real- if we can’t fight to figure out who we are.
Later, I sit across from a friend at dinner. The heat swallows me up and my bare shoulders prove logic wins. “Arms are for holding things. For holding things.” I firmly declare, having had enough of this sweeping insecurity. Not skinny little sticks that break with a pull in the wrong direction. Snap, snap, snap. Not like twigs and flower stems that are not good for the tasks of life. Arms are arms and that’s what they are. Quit the mannequin mimic.
It must be known: we are more than a collection of ligaments and blood, more than bones and mass. More than the material lie that says there is nothing more than what we see.
And so I’ve come here to say, I’ll stand here in this quiet room and scream the truth until it all comes out. Until all of our heads are healed and our insecurities have no say. Until they have no say. No say.
Artwork: Ben Kruisdijk
