Lucie Harnais--Cheusel. salt on a wound

“Whatever is on my mind, I say it as I feel it, 

I'm truthful to myself; 

I'm young and I'm old, 

I've been bought and I've been sold, so many times. 

I am hard-faced, I am gone. 

I am just like you.”1

–Detachment 

A cut on my thumb. Red dye polluting the city’s sewers. Calm arises as I rub  my index on the injured and opened flesh. I keep peeling the skin off, slowly, without thinking  of how much I could peel off before I find myself naked in the middle of winter on the seaside. Bracing myself against the wind, waiting for the drip to finally drop and the hurricane to stop. 

A breeze leaves me gasping as I stand near a cliff,

combing my wings before I take the final leap.

I scratch the slit on my thumb, draw more blood. 

I say it as I feel it. 

It should have stopped before your body failed. I was greedy to watch

the sun’s golden hour catching your eyes again, a divine

gift to be worshipped. It did. For a brief instant. 

I'm truthful to myself; 

I have ceased to exist. I have been reduced to

a heat signature on the surrounding soil, a non-existing entity,

so detached from my own reality. My mind rots to its mediocrity. 

I'm young and I'm old.

I have not mattered in a long time; I am part of an

ocean. I crash into the shore before pulling

away to be drowned. I go back to your choking sounds on the hospital bed. 

I've been bought and I've been sold– so many times. 

My body washes up on the sand, and I pick up my bones

from the ground. I touch the pad of my thumb, and yes,

the wound is still there, stinging as my skin cusps the sea salt.

I am hard-faced, I am gone. 

I gagged  on the same pills, I burnt my hand on

the same stove, I have cut my thumb with the same knife.

I’ve seen my skin disappear into nothingness. I am absent. I am hollow. I jump. 

I am just like you. 

1Glossed Lines from: Kaye, Tony, dir. of Detachment, Paper Street Films, Appian Way, Kingsgate Films, 2012 (UK)