Grievances
Jun. 14th, 2017 05:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sadoeuphemistWrite out your grievances on a piece of paper. Fold it in half, and then in half again, and then again and again until the paper starts to resist you, pushing back against your fingernails. Put it between your lips, under your tongue. Let it settle.
When you're ready, reach to your lips as if you're performing a magic trick. Unfold it like a flower blooming, like a scarf from a sleeve, like a map being spread out against a table. Flourish it, show them the ink that's been set, that's smeared and dried and smeared again, undeniable.
The secret to the trick - the trick to the secret - is the kernel of truth, the grounding in the familiar, the space beneath your tongue and down your throat and up your sinuses. Everyone will be astonished that it was in you all along.
Walk around stuffed with grievances, one for every occasion, ready to perform the trick on command. Write them down as they occur to you, fill pages with them, tamp them down between your lips and gums in a paper mache sneer. Use your teeth as mnemonics. Run your tongue across your gums, so many benign lumps on the inside of your mouth. Each one ready - at a moment's notice! - to emerge from their cocoon.
Your mouth will taste like paper, sure, but that's a benefit. They''ll leach up your spit, leave your mouth dry, tasting the hollow of air. Never forget you're lacking something. Never forget how badly you want to want to spit.
Paper's non-toxic. There's no danger in this. If the opportunity never emerges, no harm done. The little wads will wear against each other, dissolving into pulp. You'll carry them with you until your mouth slackens, until a moment of forgetting, and you'll absently brush the leavings off your lips, or you'll swallow them. As easy and as painless as shedding skin.
And if you find your chance and reach for your lips and unfold a paper rich with spit, only to see that you've revealed the wrong one - who cares? They're all the same, aren't they? All wadded together and indistinct and indivisible. The magic's in the reveal of it, not in the information. The magic trick is that you were unhappy all this time.
Keep your grievances close to your lips, as little acts of wonder. Plant them, and let them decompose and die, and give them the chance to bloom.
When you're ready, reach to your lips as if you're performing a magic trick. Unfold it like a flower blooming, like a scarf from a sleeve, like a map being spread out against a table. Flourish it, show them the ink that's been set, that's smeared and dried and smeared again, undeniable.
The secret to the trick - the trick to the secret - is the kernel of truth, the grounding in the familiar, the space beneath your tongue and down your throat and up your sinuses. Everyone will be astonished that it was in you all along.
Walk around stuffed with grievances, one for every occasion, ready to perform the trick on command. Write them down as they occur to you, fill pages with them, tamp them down between your lips and gums in a paper mache sneer. Use your teeth as mnemonics. Run your tongue across your gums, so many benign lumps on the inside of your mouth. Each one ready - at a moment's notice! - to emerge from their cocoon.
Your mouth will taste like paper, sure, but that's a benefit. They''ll leach up your spit, leave your mouth dry, tasting the hollow of air. Never forget you're lacking something. Never forget how badly you want to want to spit.
Paper's non-toxic. There's no danger in this. If the opportunity never emerges, no harm done. The little wads will wear against each other, dissolving into pulp. You'll carry them with you until your mouth slackens, until a moment of forgetting, and you'll absently brush the leavings off your lips, or you'll swallow them. As easy and as painless as shedding skin.
And if you find your chance and reach for your lips and unfold a paper rich with spit, only to see that you've revealed the wrong one - who cares? They're all the same, aren't they? All wadded together and indistinct and indivisible. The magic's in the reveal of it, not in the information. The magic trick is that you were unhappy all this time.
Keep your grievances close to your lips, as little acts of wonder. Plant them, and let them decompose and die, and give them the chance to bloom.
