{ all for this / evolution }

what could you possibly tell me

that i don't already know?

oh. that's right. everything.

i used to think i knew the world. i used to think i knew myself. i used to think i knew things in general, things about things, things upon things about other things. it made me feel big and proud.

but i was insulated from the living sharpness of not knowing. i was tightly tucked away in a fist of oblivion.

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i thought i knew almost everything --- not everything about everything, but everything i needed to know. every grain of security i gathered only buried me further. i chose safety --- and suffocation.

because i'm resilient and resourceful, i learned to breathe the molecules of an environment in which i was never meant to thrive. the lining of my lungs calcified. my skin became impermeable. the muscles in my thighs shortened, drawing my knees to my chest.

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all along it didn't feel entirely right, but it also felt necessary. that's because there was no other way for me to get from my previous body, which had reached the end of its ability to adapt, to the brilliantly unfolding creature i am now.

all the regret, all the self-loathing, all the misdirected love, had to be wrung out of me.
all that poison.

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the bones that were broken
the skin twisted
the throat closed, the spine bent
all for this
evolution