upsi was told pain moves through time
passed with the womb
until one is able to feel
and heal
blood intelligence
upsi offered herself
to the mammas of berlin
the birthing parts
the transformation parts
the possibility for a new
body growing
granny died and came to upsi
carried granny in a dream
for her mother chose to not answer the knock
did not open the door granny found a way to say
these hands are not yet done
they still hold-know a task which must be felt
by broken fingers with their pain knowledge
worker hands who repeat push through agony
so upsi gave her hands for granny to the workforce for 25 more days so that this way
of being human is now embodied beneath her skin
nerves rust wrist harp strings snap now know the scream yell rebel
upsi will not repeat march numbed this way toward death’s beat
upsi chooses to form
the defensive army’s advance away from
addicted consuming-working-abusing
upsi stops the turning cogs
with her body's simple rebellion
when they came together, grannys’ hands always held. fingers and knotted knuckles and warm soft palms. as four parts came together granny rubbed upsi’s hands and her own. all were holding each other. far apart. granny its stephie, stephie calling from germany. yes from all the way across the ocean. i don’t drink anymore granny. and im trying to find a new job. yes im working in a bar still granny. yes im careful. yes i have to go home late at night. i ride the bus. in summer i take my bike. it is so quiet and nice at night, you would love it granny, all the trees. yes i will not rush granny, even if i am late. yes i am doing what i came here to do granny, i will follow through. i am still drawing and writing and dancing. thank you granny. thank you for believing in me. i love you too. i love you too granny. goodbye granny. i love you too.
upsi ran away. to berlin. away from a great poison. upsi came to hide out, didn’t know how many years she had. upsi has been making and stashing has been placing her birthings all over this city. upsi been shedding skins. so as her hands tingle and quake as they start their pain protest she smiles and surrenders she knows this way of sharing is coming to its end. time to put hands down. time to take up a new implement. time to sing this breath. time to dance-live this body.
berlin witnessed the birthing through altbau windows. past 5 rectangular framed crosses. 2 and a half floors above dirt level. upsi crawled out of her kunt, shed a shell, a vessel grown upon skin.
figure eight hips infinity flow around folds folding into a womb upsi splits from within emerges from fear-isolation-dying parts that make her a human creature the aware-feeling-thinking parts pull themselves to the shore line lay in water lapping to feel fortunate the fortune of hosting life each breath an experience a witness to the incredible harmony of this body both is and floats upon the universes’ waves radiate from the boom bursting forth from light and matter separating. before this reality they too were merged. now experienced as different ways of being. were one.
upsi remembers so that she might learn-feel-know the body breaks and will decay long before love withers.
upsi remembers,
years earlier, From inside myself I heard bone cracking. Sound, muted in a way I had not yet experienced. Underwater-like. Not quite. The tooth shattered, pushed and pulled with a metal tool, in the hand of a man I just met. The root had grown deep and the tooth resisted. I had waited too long, the man said. I had waited to feel the aching, see gums splitting, teeth shifting. I had waited to choose the pain, to fit it into this story. Bloodied bone and a flesh curving worm exited my mouth. The searching, burrowing part was uprooted and disposed of. But in that moment I experience no pain, only heard and saw its products.
years earlier, Robin Hood stood up slowly. He did not stretch with young pup expectancy, rump in the air and front legs pushing forward. He stood up at the speed of a slowing train. Metal on metal, a leaden load. Robin Hood’s ears smelled and his eyes were a yellowing sea. Desire irrelevant to gravity and age. He managed a couple of dragging steps, his plodding accentuated by nails clicking to no beat on a linoleum floor. He made it a few feet, stopping just before the front door, and there he began to piss. There was an apathy in his action, I thought. No, his bladder was simply old, he was not burdened with this emotion. I was sixteen and burdened by my ego though. I was angry at Robin Hood for embarrassing me in front of my new friend. I was angry that I had to wipe up his piss, and wash my hands, and carry him down the front four steps so he could take a shit with dignity in the grass. Respect and love and gratitude could not be found in me during those angry, selfish, impatient days. Instead I passed on the baton of abuse.
years later, I was waiting-willing the pain in my head to stop. The throbbing pressure on the left side of my face was maddening. In the mornings I rinsed away red dried river beds which had sprung from the corner of my mouth. An infection thrived where the tooth had dug in deep. With time the flesh grew, took hold and the hole filled itself in and disappeared. Blood stains persisted on my pillow. Then they too faded.
yet years earlier, Robin Hood had begun his descent, head first, down the concrete front steps of the white house on Old Smoke Road. I stood by his side, one foot resting on the top step, bent over, my right arm around his chest to steady him. His smell filled my nostrils. He was dying, from the inside out, Robin Hood was dying. The train moved too slowly. I didn’t want to be there, I didn’t want to witness this. I had just stopped home quickly to let him out, on my way to the mall. I had more important things to do. I pushed at Robin Hood’s hind legs, insisting the load move further down the tracks. Thoughtlessly I pushed against time and nature and love. Robin Hood’s nails dragged on the concrete, a scratching sound. His front legs gave out and his face fell into the last step. He made no sound. No howl or bark or whine. I picked him up and moved him to the edge of the grass and I saw the stain on my sleeve. His mouth was bleeding. I marked him. I marked me. I passed the baton of abuse.
years later, The artist picked up a piece of paper which lay on a desk. She read words I could not see. She folded the paper and stood. I watched the blue veins below her skin as she moved toward the undulating cloth hill, searched, reached and pulled on a child’s dress, pulled it over her head and returned to the desk to pick up the paper and another object. Light reflected off metal. She moved toward the carcass and around it. She knelt down, holding the front legs, steadying the swaying weight. She pushed the knife into the flesh, close to the shoulder joint, sliced a slit into which the paper was pushed. There was no blood, no residue. The paper and written words were consumed by flesh, the incision nearly invisible with the knife’s removal.
As a child I would rub the inside of Robin Hood’s ear. There was an exquisite spot of skin and fine hair. Like a ball of silken yarn there was no hard center to this part of his body. I sat with Robin Hood’s head in my lap, heavy, warm and damp with breath. I could loose myself in the space between my fingers and his body, he and I together and the same, skin and blood and soft baby hairs. He and I at the center of the universe.
I wrote to Robin Hood. One line.
I am sorry I pushed you down the front steps
I folded the paper into a little triangle and placed it on the desk, eyes lowered in shame as I turned away. Only once I was far from the scene, as far as possible, next to the exit of the gallery, did I look up. I slumped against the door jam and felt the heaviness of the building being pulled by gravity. It could barely take my weight as well and I felt we might all collapse as the artist picked up the little triangle and opened the paper. I whispered the words as she read them.
I am sorry I pushed you down the front steps
She sat and appeared suddenly heavy as the flesh of her buttocks spilled out from under her. A roundness formed where none had been before.
I perceived gravitational pulls shifting.
She sat staring out at the clothing which now floated in space. And when she stood she swung in an arch towards the carcass, instinctively, gracefully, flawlessly. Her naked body’s blue intensified as the red carcass pulled her in, orbiting the bloodless flesh three times, she came ever closer. Until, her body too slumped like glass in front of the cow’s face. Both naked, both vehicles and vessels, one alive and one dead, almost touching. She lifted the knife and without steadying the weight of the carcass she let the knife be pulled into the ear of the cow, and she let my words be pulled into the ear of the cow, and she let my hate for myself be pulled into the ear of the cow, and her and I and the cow and Robin Hood, somewhere eons away at the center of the universe, felt my fingers on the inside of the ear, and a head turned towards them, to lick them.
For years and years, you turned my birthing parts into a factory. One element of an assembly line creating the complete worker-consumer. YET, womb will grow blood will breath cord will feed kunt will birth tits will leak and dissolve the intersection of your society and my body the nurse administering the substances of addition to keep worker-consumer complacent and productive. You enslaved our creator bodies YET now upsi sees. And she forgives so she can heal and transform now capable of knowing-owning-loving her kunt capable and willing and grateful and fortunate to be cleaning up this home together-strong-peace-dance.
(in part inspired by Eloise Fornieles Carrion, at Haunch of Venison, Berlin)