contemplation on time

There are three women, three fictional women to be exact, who have made their place in my heart. Even if their creators never created them, they'd still exist. They’ll find ways to come alive somewhere on my body, like a sprout.  Naoko is the one that dies first because she can’t have sex with her lover: like me. Maria is a whore, but she finds love almost instinctively: like me. Tereza is the one that believes in coincidences and dies tragically with her lover: also like me.  When my body closes up and I feel like nothing can enter, not even the breath that sustains me, is when Naoko is alive. I have cried so much when I’ve been unfriendly towards your body. It's almost like I am a disgusting binary: one that craves you inside me, another one that rejects touch and runs away.  I had my first kiss when I was fifteen, like Maria. I didn’t know how to kiss, but I still touched my lips on another person’s. I must've been brave at fifteen.  I kept my mouth close

There is an old picture of my mother and her brother, where she's leaning on a car and staring straight at the camera. She's wearing a high waisted skirt with a tucked in polka dotted shirt. Her hair was long, longer than mine ever was. I've spent a lot of time as a kid, simply scattering her pictures on the floor, and looking at them.  These days when we go shopping, my mother sits down somewhere, and says, "Call me when you pick something." She's getting old. She agrees with whatever I pick, and sometimes she barely even glances at it.  I remember when she was ecstatic about picking my clothes. She had ideas. On non-uniform days she would ask me before bed, "what're you wearing tomorrow?"  When I feel uncomfortable in my clothes I think about this one specific photo of my mother- and how she leans on that car.   I was thinking about my mother's clothes. She