My body is one of ice hardened by the sting of the wintertime, one so thick and weary I sometimes feel like it has been repurposed as a skating rink. Paralyzed in this pitiful state, I feel no blood run through me—only small cracks, mementos of my hiemal hell.
But I know under this ice, there are mounds of water weeping to be set free. I count the days until spring, when I can form a river from my chest, pulling hydrogen, hydrogen, oxygen from epidermis, for my body was made to run and be free.
A transparent painting I make of myself, sprinkling bits of soil and grass. I am not pulling brush strokes from the air, sir. this canvas has always been my own. It’s all just a painting to me, all of it. This river is nothing but art.
Riel