[From a larger essay project]
But to write about myself, I would have to be able to see around myself. I would have to see my own gesture, hear my own tongue. Smell my own scent. Impossible. Unattainable. I only know what I intended. The perfume on my inner wrist, the hollow of my throat, placed carefully in the morning. I cannot tell you how my body shifts the tones, only that it must happen. A matter of chemistry. I am not completely fanciful.
See, text limits. You cannot tell me either. Even if you wanted to.
And of course, you have snuck into my text. Invasive, invaded. I need to map the ways I am overrun, the ways I am persuaded. I can fortify if I can track you. If I can learn the location of the chinks you slip between. But I am bad at mapping. I am even worse at defense. See the way you enter, without effort?
*I am writing about maps these days. Strange essays that meander without direction, and I am drawn again to cartography. The art of leaving things out to describe.