Author: Olavia Kite

I hate it when they try to showcase “all sizes” in pictures of women (because they’re being all condescending, “embracing” “real women”) but still turn their faces into some sort of unrecognizable photoshop blob. The skin, our shield, our battlefield, is being reduced by the media to this pristine untouched satin sheet. Thus, even if they have the guts to display you—you with the saggy boobs, you with the bulky hips—, all signs of individuality (hair, scars, wrinkles) will be erased from you. We’re encouraged to achieve perfection through the removal of ‘blemishes’ because our skin is not meant to tell stories. Not only are we still lacking voice out there but our bodies do too.

The certainty of the end has got to be the saddest thing. Or I don’t know. I’ve heard of people who remain serene when they know there is nothing left to do, no solution to their life-threatening condition, and they just let go. Letting go is important. But how to do it is the question.

Once I felt invincible about the possibilities that love offered, no matter how hard it seemed to keep it going. It was in my hands. Distance was a terrible obstacle, but I was sure I had the means to overcome it. But that was only one variable I could control against thousands of others. Time and lack of reciprocity, for instance. Or let’s not call it that way, but rather… much more enthusiasm on one side than the other. One side believes in love as a miracle to be conquered against all odds, the other thinks of love as merely incidental. It works right here right now where we found it or it doesn’t work at all. Unfortunately (the word is an understatement), I cannot offer right here right now to anybody —unless they were willing to come here, which would of course be absolutely wonderful—. And there’s no word about alternatives to make paths intersect. Perhaps my brief presence does not elicit any sort of hope nor craving for a longer future together from anybody.

So here I am, letting go. At least I’m not clinging to it desperately. One lesson I’ve learned before is that cats that cling to curtains sooner or later rip them with their claws. However, I still wish life were a tad more benevolent towards me in terms of creating opportunities to experience shared domesticity. Oh well. Someday, I guess.

Fear. A pencil in my hand. Fear. It’s a pointy thing, a pencil. At any moment it’ll slash my other wrist and slice my fingers. Terror. Why am I wielding such a dangerous weapon? Don’t they forbid these things? Some tyrants do, indeed. I feel responsible. There’s a whole box of them, and I could just use them anytime. Ha! Ha! Ha! Evil laughter! The universe is right here for me to create and destroy at will. I’ll show you how.

A line on a piece of paper. The horizon. Your name on the line. Now you own this desert. I’ll give you this window to a desert where your name rises like the sun. Your name is daylight, didn’t you know? Everything that’s touched by your name is your kingdom. Everything that’s touched by your name is my world.