aspectabund
“Up 5.15 a.m. thinking, packpackpack. I appear to have accumulated more things. How did this happen? I haven’t shopped. Think my bath oils have bred.”
Dear Simone,
My mood is temperamental as the weather. One moment, it's raining and the next so hot I cannot stand to be in my skin. Both images irritate me and I know it's not Him who keeps shape-shifting. Christ is concealed and then he is there with his arms spread. Waiting to receive.
Christ is a constant; it's me who suffers.
My calves are spotted with black bites; for a few days, I thought the bugs poisoned my blood. I cannot feel the little black flies that land so lightly until they sink their teeth into my flesh. Isn't that how most things move with soft steps to stalk their prey? I run at such a force everyone can hear me- panting softly in the dark.
I must learn to move quickly and quietly as the panther creeps through the jungle. Or the snake I spotted with its yellow tail flicking back and forth. Its tongue was forked and told me to stay still as it slithered past. I held my breath too, and it laughed.
You don't need to die to let others live.
More messages from the reptiles.
On my run to the waterfall, I found the snake coiled up on the sidewalk with its eyes missing. Someone had dug them out. I could see down the snake's throat to where it was pulpy and decomposing. I didn't take it as a sign for anything - sometimes things are not what you think they are, so I kept running.
Further down the path, I crossed a pig rooting in the thicket. And past the pig, I passed six dogs fighting over a piece of cloth soaked with grease. It smelled like charcoal and meat. The pups were wild from it.
Once I got to the waterfall, I skipped down the stairs to the basin where the water poured into a makeshift pool. From the pool, the water splits off in six directions to continue in smaller rivulets down the hill. I found a woman's shoe, pink and sparkly, and six beer cans in the hollowed-out trunk of a tree.
I perched at the edge of the basin and watched the water swirl. The strength of the water muted the jungle sounds. I mute myself in a similar fashion when I come into contact with individuals more powerful than myself.
I am easily influenced. People write their impressions on me and it takes some time to empty myself of their longing. I feel things before I see them, and sometimes I practice flexing this muscle by running with my eyes closed.
I heard the thunder before I saw the lightning, the trees blocking my sight to the sky. I should have moved, but stayed by the waterfall and let my thoughts foam like the water's surface.
I am sick of consuming, Simone. I want to empty myself into a container and have a good long look at the stuff that comes out.
What am I full of? And why can't I access it?
I'm blocked, and my dreams are of pipes and lockers overflowing with things. Material possessions bind me to what I am right now, and what if I don't want to be that thing anymore? I give it all away, and someone else takes it on?
What of it, Simone; where does it go when we drop it?
I am speaking of love, lust, longing; the legacy of our being.
It's nearing the end of the year and I am already removing myself from the person I was in 2022. I don't want to carry it.
My relationship with food is rife with this conflict of not wanting to carry more than is necessary. I am hungry all of the time, though not in my belly. My gut aches with a desire to be touched, felt, seen, and received.
I am never lonely; I love being alone.
Yet.
Just yet.
And so.
SO.
And.
I still want to be told I am loved.
Who sees me, Simone?
I stuck my hands in the pool and washed my face with the water. Ridding myself of the salt. My eyes stung and the water felt good. I heard the rain before I felt it- the canopy of leaves providing a reprieve.
I did not want to leave and knew I could not stay.
So goes the anthem of my life.
I ran up the stairs to stimulate the little spark inside that would fuel my run homeward. I ran the same narrow path where I'd seen the snake and when I got to the corner where it had been coiled, it was gone.
I should have stopped to look for it, but it was raining heavily and my feet sloshed in my white runners. Vanity kept me moving. So I pushed forth without too many questions as to what could have picked the snake up.
Perhaps the pig, for it was not where it had been either.
When I was about ten minutes from my apartment, the rainfall was so heavy that I could not see. The water ran down the road to my ankles and prevented the skip in my step. A blue house with a small awning was to the left of the road, so I crossed, as quickly as I could in the thundershower, and tucked myself into the crevasse. The water continued to slosh up to my shins, though no rain touched my face or body. I could see outwards.
I leaned back against the wall and watched the storm.
I stood like this for several moments, blessing the choice to leave my phone and earbuds at home. I never do that, and had done so on a whim.
The rain began to lighten enough for me to see across the street and what did I spy but something yellow wound around the dark branch of a tree.
The Snake!
It laughed hysterically, shaking so much so that the leaves shuddered on the bough. It was yelling at me though I could not make out what it was saying. Thunder rumbled low and long from the hillside and I yelled back at it, I cannot hear you!
There was no response.
The snake remained in place, and I in mine, and the rain stopped. The sky lightened, and sunbeams shone through the trees. Birds called and cars honked somewhere from down the hill. I tentatively stepped out from where I'd pressed my back to the wall of the blue house and stepped onto the road.
The Snake was staring at me- it had both of its eyes!
Are you the same snake from the road?
It was a question from within and the snake heard me.
It nodded at me, its forked tongue peeping from its maw.
How are you here and not there?
Pack light and you will always be able to recollect what was taken,
the snake said.
How did you reclaim your eyes? I asked, and before the snake could reply, I felt a car coming down the windy road.
I jumped back to the curb just in time. A black van rushed past, its windows tinted. It hugged the curb and I felt the air move in front of my face from the proximity.
When I looked back to the point on the tree where the snake had hung, it was gone.
I walked home, my feet squelching in the wet shoes. My house key tight in my fist. I stripped in the doorway to avoid making a mess and showered to rinse the dirt from my arms and legs.
I made tea, ate a few cold grapes from the fridge, and lay in bed to listen to the rain. The clouds swallowed the sun again, and as the darkness settled over the favela, it rained and rained and rained.
Photo source.
