lauren samblanet
like shadows, like mirrors
you begin to envision the body’s imagining of itself as a series of shadows on the wall. the body bent in on itself. the body twisted, impossibly broken yet still, somehow, held together. your body as a monstrosity. a beloved monstrosity. you question whether you see it as monstrous because that’s what it is or because a voice, above you, tells you that it’s monstrous. you heal your body through shadow. feeding the dark form on the wall grasses and pebbles and small flowers. only cold, colorado river water to drink. the flowers are purple and the pebbles are purple and the grasses are purple and your shadow self swells up purple and announces something in a language you cannot yet understand.
fortitude
for z
i.
what happens to a body when it’s opened
when it’s freezing
when it’s ripping or ripped open
happens to a body when it’s tundra
when it’s frozen
when it’s snowing and barefooted walks through a town
happens to a body when it’s bloodied
it’s liquid
it’s frozen open and glass broken by stone
happens to a body when it’s a boy barefooted and walking through a town and it’s snowed
when it’s bloodied
when it’s ripped and its open
happens to a body when it’s polar
it’s icecapped and creaking
it’s shivering and flaking
happens to a body when it’s a girl trekking in the tundra
when it’s frostbit and frozen over
when it’s barefooted and walks in the tundra to a town
happens to a body when it’s stabbed by a fork
it’s a belly and its open
it’s hands inside a belly that is open
happens to a body when it’s freezing and it’s a girl
when it’s walking in a polar tundra
when it’s open or opening
happens to a body when it’s zombie eyed and hungers
it’s a boy in the house
it’s capable of opening
happens to a body when it’s freezing and hungers
it’s a girl in the tundra
it’s fur booted and walking through a tundra and it’s snow
ii.
when a landscape offers only danger & darkness
when a landscape is horrific & capable of altering internal bodily states
when a landscape is barren & open
when a landscape offers storms
when a landscape is icecapped & creaking
when a landscape is glowed & moving
when a landscape offers frozen rot
when a landscape is snowed
when a landscape is vacant
when a landscape offers blood ice & snow hares
when a landscape is hostile & silenced
when a landscape is toothed & clawed
when a landscape offers only nothing
when a landscape is uncharted
when a landscape is glaciered
when a landscape offers desired mystery & undesired consequences
when a landscape is embodied & emboldened
when a landscape is northern & holding
when a landscape offers solitude
when a landscape is explored
when a landscape is seen
when a landscape offers only nothing & nothing at all
when a landscape is horrific & capable of altering external bodily states
when a landscape is arctic
iii.
what happens to a body when it walks into a landscape & expects no harm?
(he said friendship with me was like a pillar)
(he wanted my body or what i mean is control)
(encouraging my abject collections but made larger & public)
(as in a performance)
(as in encouragement for the sake of calling himself a feminist too)
(as in for the sake of fucking my bloody or bleeding or recently bled pussy)
(as in he spent time building trust so he could choke me)
(i mean maybe he always wanted to hurt me)
(if this isn’t truth, it feels like it in my body)
(where i am holding)
(he made me his friend so he could try to own my body)
(he made me his friend so he would appear an ally to feminists)
(what i mean is he built trust so he could benefit from my body)
(this was sexual, his desire, but social & artistic too)
(he wanted my blood on larger sheets of paper)
(as in a performance)
(he wanted me abject)
(as a means of having me, he tried to break me)
(the abject collections were not in question of ownership until he tried to own them)
(i mean it was no accident)
(as if he planned to choke me & to try to control my body)
(as in a performance of ownership)
(where i am holding)
(holding the ghost of an ephemera)
(ephemera of a friend that never was)