Flesh

It’s a spring day today. It’s summer in the sun and winter in the shade. My body does not know which season to belong to, so it lingers in the in-between, splitting itself apart. Half burning, half frozen. Half alive, half rotting.

You understand this, don’t you?

That feeling of being suspended between two selves, two states of being, neither of them quite yours. The warmth touches you, but it does not sink in. The cold nips at your skin, but you do not shiver. You are not here, not really. You are only the shadow you cast.

Just like you, The enormity of my desires disgusts me. I want to be called beautiful. I want to be told I am loved—not once, not twice, but over and over again, until the words sink through my flesh, until they take root in my bones, until I become something soft, something sacred, something worth keeping.

But I am made of spoiled meat, swollen with things that should not be here. I hold too much filth inside me—blackened regrets, sickness curdling beneath my ribs, sins congealing in the hollows of my stomach. I must carve them out before I can be loved. I must tear them from myself, every last piece of rot, until I am clean.

You’ve done this too, haven’t you?

Sat in front of a mirror and searched for the parts that could be scraped away, as if you were no more than a block of marble, waiting for the sculptor’s chisel. Held onto words like they could shape you, like they could press into your skin and leave something behind—something permanent, something real. But words slip off too easily. The warmth fades before it can stain.

We both have so much love to give,don’t we?  but no hands to place it in. My fingers are too rigid, too clumsy, too stained with the dirt of my own making. So I will break them. Snap each knuckle, pull the bones apart like wet petals. Reshape them into something better, something softer. Like clay. I will mold them into vessels, hollow and deep enough to hold the pieces of me that are unworthy.

And then I will fill them. My fingers will dig into my own flesh, clawing through sinew and fat, ripping out the pus-filled insecurities that have made a home inside me. I will drop them into the vessel, one by one. Every self-inflicted wound. Every wasted breath. Every ugly thought, every festering sorrow.

But flesh left in the open decays. The bucket will stink of me. My sins will bloat and blacken. The vessel will overflow with the refuse of my soul, dripping down my wrists like spoiled nectar.

Even rot can be made useful. Even filth can be repurposed. I will take the slop of my wasted self and pour it into the earth. Let it sink into the dirt, mix with the soil, ferment into something rich and fertile. Let my own ruin become manure, feeding the roots of something better.

You’ve done this too.

Turned pain into something useful. Told yourself that all the suffering had to mean something, had to grow into something. And maybe it did. Maybe all those nights spent peeling yourself apart have made the ground softer, more ready for something new to take root.

But still, you wonder—how much more must you give? How much more of yourself must you burn to keep others warm?

And when the insides are emptied, when there is nothing left to fester, we shall turn to the outside. I will peel away the face that has never belonged to me. I will rake my fingers through my scalp until the strands come loose in clumps, until my skin is bare and raw, a newborn thing gasping in the cold.

But that will not be enough. It never is. The body must be remade entirely.

So I will press my palms to my cheekbones and push—crack them, rearrange them, mold them into something new. I will reshape my jaw, unhinge it from my skull, carve it into an elegant arc, something deserving of adoration. I will flay my old self with steady hands, strip away the ugliness, slough off the parts that have kept me unloved.

And when I stand again, I will be beautiful.

Isn’t that what they wanted?

For us to become something presentable, something polished, something that does not make others uncomfortable? You cut yourself down and call it self-improvement. You bleed and call it transformation. You shatter and call it progress.

But what if the pieces no longer fit? What if, in your desperation to be loved, you have made yourself into something unrecognizable?

At last I wish to step into the sun and let it burn through me, let it cleanse the last remnants of what I used to be. I will become a sunflower in a faraway field, petals upturned, waiting for a light that does not love it back. I will let it scorch me down to my roots, to my bones.

And when there is nothing left but glowing embers and sculpted beauty, my wobbly knees will take control, bending, collapsing, pressing my body into the dirt.

This will be my namaz.

Not a prayer. A surrender.

And I will wait.

For something to bloom in the space I have emptied.

For someone to look at me and not flinch.

For someone to love me, now that I have made myself beautiful.

Now that I have made myself new.

But tell me—

Will it ever be enough?