Home Planets
I break myself so I can examine the pieces. Flipping each fragment over like an archeologist, the pieces give me a particular thrill. I am an assembly of different histories, selves waiting to be glued together. Every other day, I routinely break myself apart so I can put myself together in order to remind myself of my reflection. The glare of the morning light pierces my irises and I'm sun-stunned, marvelling at the miracle of my me.
I don't know what home is. I used to think it was a place, but now that feels less certain. These days, I think it's a person who I find myself in. Here, a small space where my soul feels suspended, tethered to the ground.
I am fragmented,. This me and that over this place and other; the ghosts of past permutations of myself haunt the alleys and corridors of places I was, in physical places and within enclaves between memories. It is hard sometimes to gather all the pieces of myself in order to go through the motions of being a person, whole and indivisible, sentient and seemingly alive.
Often, I dream of home. It's a place very far away now. The longer I spend here, the fuzzier the memories become, the subtler the imprints on my body. I can still remember if I conjure up a fragment, a singular strand from a timeline of a past life. I feel it is far and near, inside and outside my fingers, within and in a distance.
There are times I feel homesick for no apparent reason. The hollow in my throat drains through my heart till I am inured. I dream of musty rooms and humid green fields and the sea, always the sea and a boat, floating onwards, towards a destination unknown. I confuse sometimes the waking and the dream; sometimes I walk through the real as through a dream.
Sometimes, reality is wonky and I think I am living in simulation. The seams show barely at the edges, threatening to unravel. I see and feel through a looking glass frosted and sleepwalking, my sense dormant and half-asleep. Realities leak here as through a membrane from some other universe. The air is thick with the thoughts of countless others.
Like a fish, I swim through this reality as through a dream. I feel, I see, but I do not understand.
