Sealskin calling

“Like a snake, my heart
has shed its skin.
I hold it here in my hand,
full of honey and wounds.”
― Federico García-Lorca

Veil – latin velum, medical c. 1771 “the soft palate”, plural vela; “sail, curtain, covering”; PIE root ‘weg’ – “to weave a web”

you wear the veil of illusion well, thinking it will make you holy.
but small is not holy, neither is a god that punishes, a heart that fears nor a clean white box.
holy is what bleeds and what can make love to you; holy dances and is not pristine, not perfect, or tamed
wild is holy, and the river and your mouth,
when you open, that is holy.

you’ve been lied to, that your trauma makes you less
that your birth was a mistake, you’ve been told to wrap your body in veils of illusion
sin skin,
to not speak of wombs and herbs.

they don’t know your great grandmothers have weaved the stories in you, recipes that heal, poems you’ll never forget, a knowing bone-deep
mystery of earth in your viscera, god in your interstitium.

let your prayer be: remembering
what stirs in you and does not fear.
i say to hell with veils and lies, to hell with the old stories and the weak men.

may you become disillusioned with the world you’ve known
may the dream stir you up
may you find a god with no hell and full of light
maybe you find yourself in the soul of the world
no more whispering your prayers in a damp church,
but laying them down one by one on the altar of earth
the light within you feeding new growth.

******************************************

This week, searching for something, I came across a writing that I did on my last day of school. I forgot about it, I wrote it and never read it back until now, 10 years later. I want to publish it here, more in honour of the child I was then, of the pain I had to carry when others were playing and loving and running, I had to be grown up and go through a dark time of initiation. I’m grateful for each moment of it and also my heart is filled with immense and infinite love to the child that wrote this.

March 2015

It is nearly midnight and the sky is a strange pink that dissolves through my curtains. It paints my eyelids red and blue. It does not let me sleep.

But this is not about the sky. This is about today. I do not wish to put this anywhere but I will keep it in memory of my last day of school. 

Today was not about madly running out of school surrounded by friends shouting and throwing balloons. There were no friends. No balloons. Today was a day of hugs, tears and too much beer. I felt extreme happiness and absolute sadness at exactly the same moment. After my last exam finished, I wanted to scream from the deepest part of my lungs, I wanted to rip my shirt off and throw it, to run as fast as possible out of the school and roll on the hills surrounding it – not offering freedom but more marking the edges of the school; there is no way out. But today there was a way out: forever. 

I wandered on the corridors for the last time, inhaling the smell, feeling the unsteady floor under my feet, absorbing the dark, faded colours on the walls that were teared apart and damp. I went one last time to your class, but you weren’t there anymore. What was I expecting to find? You sitting there, quickly sorting out papers, books, pens – always in a rush, never having a moment to think, to watch, to feel. Your classroom was changed. Your things completely gone, the desks moved, more light through the windows, a vase of flowers on the desk, a pink heart-shaped plastic thing stuck on the door: the signs of a woman. A smell of flowery perfume and a lightness in the air. No more of the heavy atmosphere when you were there, your class where I was always scared and weak. Vulnerable. Your class where everything started. 

So I left that behind too, knowing that I will never see it again. I left the corridors and I smiled at everyone passing by – knowing that I will never see them again. To my other teachers, Mr O especially, I could not even say a word – I just nodded and stared and managed a weak “thanks”. I felt if they looked too long at me I will burst not only into tears, but my body will explode, everything will pour out of my head. A fool, they would think.

And Mr O hugged me: a warm hug that broke all the barriers of teacher-student created by all these years. We were now friends. You know he is part of the story too. We always talked about him. And I always thought he knows about us, about my foolish feelings and thoughts, maybe about yours too. 

But this is not about you either. It is about the end of an era, the end of twelve years of struggle, of pain, of triumph, of falling and getting back up and falling again. It is about an ending. It is about a beginning. Today, I left the biggest part of my life: school. It is completely over: no more days wearing uniforms and being woken up by aggressive school-bells that are never on time, always late, always two, three minutes later than they should. No more running towards the school bus, desperate to get home and hide, cry or perhaps pour my stories out to my mother before they explode inside myself. No more masks and fake laughs and pretending to be immature like the rest, pretending to be part of their game. It is all over. And yet I am sad. I feel I left some of my heart in there, but I am certain that a new one will grow and regenerate like trees. My heart is a tree, branching and growing and changing. It never fades. 

And I left the school behind, not looking back, unsure if I said goodbye to everyone, feeling I forgot something there. I left the school with a tremendous happiness flickering inside my chest and I wanted to scream I am finally free. I wanted to scream it has ended. 

Now it really has ended. No more. I feel so relived. Only now I shed all the layers of the winter; of all winters of my childhood, with the school over my shadow, counting days of holidays and hours of homework and minutes of unsuccessful lovers. And with the end of my school days it is the end of our story. It might begin again, this time differently. This time lasting longer or maybe this time not hiding, or dying. 

Or it might not begin at all. I perhaps will grow and forget about you. Or maybe not forget, but repress everything and think I am healed when I will not be. But it certainly is the end of this story. The one that began in your class on the first day and ended with me screaming, crying and tearing my soul apart in a dark room, praying and begging for something I never quite knew what. Ending with a dreadful story, an ending that no book will ever have, no writer will ever be as evil as God offering us this. A story of cycling hours, and hours and hours on the hills, hoping you will pass by me and think you know me for a second. Of me, exhausted from so many hills and the rain stabbing like swords, falling to the ground crying. Of me, never sleeping a whole summer, a whole autumn, a whole winter and then spring when I slept for a day and then woke up again. 

Now it is summer again. And this is the end of our story. A story about mirrors and stones, spirits made for each other, bonds and brotherhoods, true love as we used to say.

And so, I go on the edge of river Leith, behind my house. Its hiss is loud and certain; it is real. I put my feet slowly inside, its coldness turning my feet into stone. Remember the first day, feet stuck in the snow, December? Not anymore – I will not think of it anymore. The water is clean and pure as it washes away everything. 

I drop my school years, twelve, one by one, into the river. I drop each year like a stone: heavy, carrying its stories packed with tears and laughter, friends or no-friends, 5am mornings of reading and 12am nights of writing poetry. I drop each year, and with that, I get lighter and lighter. Until I become a feather, a sharp piece of ice – so light, I become a river. 

Leith carries the years downwards. They go so fast – almost risky. I watch them go. I let them go. 

My body is pure now, ready to be filled with new stories. 

I am free. I walk on the edge of the river, barefoot, the sun warming up the back of my neck. I feel empty, but light. I feel free. No matter how much I wanted to hold onto you, onto my stories, my tears, my pain, it has happened. No matter how much I didn’t want to let it end, it has ended. 

It has truly ended. And of course, I still miss you terribly. More and more. But I am empty and free now. And whatever might come is welcomed too: I know it will not be easier. But it will be new, full of potential. 

This is not about you, this is not our story. This is not about the sky.

This is about an end, well-defined and sharp. Today a story ends, so that morning will feel or perhaps fill the empty vessel of my body with a green newness I long for.