Forte/Foible or At the Center of Percussion

My body is wrong; I was made for violence. 

I am blind behind my back, but I know the knife is coming. My tongue hasn’t torn and tasted like yours but why would it when my flesh is the feast, mangled in their mouths.

Survival requires adaptation: skin thickened, tongue quickened, guarding every part of a hardened heart—you’ll get the truth I give you.

This artifice is honesty; the armor is more me than what you’d see beneath. The edge of you feels more real than guts opened up exposing soft red lies hiding inside. I am not like them.

My chest is a central sin, organs indifferent to appetite, the whole torso a transgression. The body betrays in myriad ways; you are not the only one regularly soaked in blood.

I am not afraid of dying; I am afraid of letting them win.

I could have died then, I could have died where they put me, dyed as red as you but less real.  If I am disembodied, injustice must seek other souls to torment.

I’ve spent so long subsisting, I wonder what it’s like to live.

You say you don’t know, the only lie between us. You stupid fucking sword! I found you in a grave, silent, gave you violence, soaked you in soft red things, woke you to yourself.

You couldn’t understand. Your form is your function; you are cold and hard and unforgiving. This is honest: a blade is made for violence. 

When you said let me in, I did.

Now you are not so cold and unforgiving. You are soft; we don’t like it. You examine the anatomy, see every evil angle. Your self ripped from our ribs will make us right.

Our body is violence, our body is wrong, our body is honest.

Your body is wrong; you were not made for violence. 

Your eyes miss the edge-shine of the blade in the night. Your ears peal at the thunder of metal meeting metal; your tongue does not yet thirst for blood or know the taste of flesh.

These flaws could be forgiven, if not for your lies. Deceitful creature! You said your stomach was steel and your heart grown hard. 

You dissembler—you try to hide the truth of yourself under artifice and armor and abdominals but I know you are as soft and red inside as everyone you and I cut open.

Your chest is a central sponge, frail lungs and friable ribs buried behind breasts. Your belly is indulgent, made for eating and laughing and making mewling things.

You are so afraid of dying.

I should have known then, I should have known when you lay bleeding and battered on the battlefield dying, dyed red, softness spilling out the same as all the rest. 

You asked me how to live, as if I’d ever done it. 

I said I did not know, and you said no you stupid fucking sword how do I live right now. You had held me so long, fought with me, thrust with me, trusted me as an extension of yourself.

I was made to rend, to end what I sink myself in. I was made to be hard and cold and unforgiving. This is honest: I was made for violence.

When I said let me in, you did.

Now you will not be the soft thing you were. You will be cold and unforgiving.  When I rended you I mended you, and we are soft and red but we will live. We will cut away our wrongness until we are made right.

Our body is violence, our body is wrong, our body is honest.

© 2023 Ash Howell

About the Author

Ash Howell (they/them) is a human. They live with another human, a very small human, and two very lazy dogs near Lake Michigan.