Visions of Skinlessness

Today I sit in peace and quiet, immersed. I'm reflecting on the sound my body makes when I breathe. It creeks a tiny bit, somewhere underneath the skin that I can feel moving between each heartbeat.

Thu-thunk. Thu-thunk.
My skin is crawling.

Thu-thunk. Thu-thunk.
It crawled away.
And slipped right under the door.

What should I do? I can't go outside exposed like this, but I don't want it to get away, it's the only skin I've ever known!

Thu-thunk. Thu-thunk.
Oh look! I still have my fingernails. I thought they might have slipped off with my skin. At least I have them.

Thu-thunk. Thu-thunk.
Skinlessness! I seem to have happened upon a theme. The main characters in a book I'm writing are a piece of skin and the animal from which it was skinned. And prior to writing about them, I've also written about having my skin pulled off by my very own hairs. Now once again, I'm seeing myself without any skin!

What might all these visions of skinlessness mean? Tell me internet!

The closest thing I could find was the definition of skinlessness in dreams, which reads,

To dream that you or someone else is skinless suggests that you are having difficulties in sensing your emotional and psychological world. You are experiencing anxieties about how you are being perceived by others. You need to look beyond the superficial and find the sensitive truth about yourself and about others.

I'm not exactly sure who wrote this dream definition, but it's posted all over the internet, in exact words, without credit given. Whatever happened to bibliographies?

Thu-thunk. Thu-thunk.
I've just discovered a direction to take my skinless characters next—a quest to find the sensitive truth beyond the superficial about you and me! It's located just beyond the place where anxiety flows from how we're being perceived. To find it, we just have to breathe.

Back and Forth Between You and Me

Fingeringngngngngng the keys backckck and forththth betweenenenen the laststststststststststststst twowowowowowow letters in any wordrdrdrdrdrdrdrdrdrdrd whenever yououououououououou feel like it for as longngngngng as you feel like itititititit just to see whatatatatatat it feelslslslslslsls like.

After that, pat yourself on the back with a smack of the back of your hand. Flail yourself in monkey movements. Oooh ooohh ah ah aah!

Now get serious and cry out, "TEARS!"

Serious! Like someone who is really reading this and not just saying that they will read it later and not really mean it. That's it! Now, just between you and me, we're not alone. We're together in some sort of imagined dimension that we only knew existed since the invention of computers—where the past shoots through the future and haunts us with its presence. While we're here, we should try something. I'll write your words while you read my mind.

"I don't get it. This is silly. Wait. I don't say silly. I'd say something more like stupid. NO! Stop making me sound like I'm arguing with myself. Make me say something that my friends would only be able to see to believe, then I'll tweet it! By the way, I loved your book!"

It's Sensational

So, reading. Huh? What do you think about that? Words. Words. Wads of words wiggling somewhere between your eyes and ears, right behind your knows, I mean, nose. It's sensational.

I'm inside your head! Can you see what I'm doing? Of course not! Because I'm behind your eyeballs! They are moving—well, wiggling is more like it, wiggling back and forth because you are still reading.

And there are cables connected to everything—vines and vines of veins filled with blood filled with cells filled with microscopic things. I'm swinging from them. It's fun. Like a jungle gym.

When I let go, I'll slide down your nose and land on your lips. If you can feel me do so, tell me, so I can hear how big your voice sounds at a microscopic level. Ready? Here I go!

Fort Fortitude

Let's build a fort and call it Fort Fortitude. We'll make it out of trees and boulders next to a river filled with hot springs so hot that you have to hop across them quickly or else you'll get burned. We'll brave the winters with the warmth of friends who are encouraged to bring their own blankets for the holidays. We'll shoot arrows from bows into targets made of unbelievable shots pinned to a cardboard box and strapped to a bale of hay. What do you say?

- for Tristan

An Excerpt From A Letter To Hannah

It's just a few minutes past five-o-clock, and when it's sunny like today is I like to sit out on the front steps of my apartment where the setting sun is unblocked by buildings. I sit there and watch all the cars stack up on the street—all the people headed home from their long day at work. They all look rushed—in a hurry to get home and be off the clock, maybe eat some dinner, call up a friend, or plop down in front of the tv. I'm already home. I've been here all day, by myself, alone.

I'm never quite sure which of us is happier—me, already at home, off the clock, or them, headed there, on their way. Eh. Who cares but me? And who's to say who is happier? Who's to compare? And why is there any comparison? They have their lives, and I have mine. I have a typewriter waiting for me next to a cup of tea. That should be good enough for me.

I can look at anyone sitting there in their cars and imagine that they are rushing home to finally get the chance to sit at their own typewriters. I wonder what they might be rushing home to write? Are they working on a novel, or writing a letter to a friend like me? Are they fighting writer's block, or are they typing away frantically—bursting with words and ideas for more words? Getting to it right away—telling their loved ones, or roommates, don't bother me, I'm writing!

One of them is writing a story about their day at the office, trying to understand what just happened to them. Another is just sitting there feeling the plastic keys with his fingertips, wondering if he can ever get up the nerve to explain how they feel. To him they feel captivating.

And another is writing a suicide note, not because they want to commit suicide, but to show themselves the words that would be read if they were to be found dead tomorrow, or whenever, because it wouldn't really matter anyway because they would be dead and they wouldn't care about anything by then.

And another is more light-hearted in their approach. She runs home to write jokes, and while she writes them she imagines herself in front of a large studio audience saying just the right words to make them all laugh simultaneously while wondering simultaneously why they're all laughing. Later she will read what she wrote back to herself to see if her words work on her. When it's a success she will laugh herself to sleep. Unfortunately, when it's not, it has the opposite effect. She knows that it's a risk, but tonight she is feeling able to risk it.

And then there is me.