The inside of my mouth is coarse from incessantly nibbling the flesh. The part of my middle finger that touches the index is pink and raw from picking. A tiny bone near my ankle is trying to push out. A bunch of my hair has fallen off, leaving a curious bald spot on my head that my mother suspects to be skin cancer. My throat is coarser than before. The inside of my chest is fetid. Acid drips slowly into my stomach from it. My toe rings dig into my long toe. I limp. My dreams are made of misshapen incidents and untoward people participating in them. My insides, I suspect, are turning tar black. They rot patiently while I participate in the outward life with an inherent compulsion to labor.
I continue to attend family gatherings, sleep under the gaze of a crowded room, tell children stories about the jungle people and eat desserts when provided. The exterior to my rotting inside looks utterly normal, almost disappointingly so. This exterior has remained the same weight, height, foot, and bra size through the years. Certain labors have sustained it. I read fiction like life depends on it, I fight for filtered water in a glass to avoid “hygienic” plastic bottles, and I watch comedy specials on Netflix. I go to parks, use gym equipment like swings, engage in social drinking, tell regular stories animatedly, and engage in activity — furious, unmeditative activity, in lots of company.
Other times, I refuse to leave home for weeks; family suffices for society whenever I need it. From inside my room, I continue to think that the most beautiful thing a city can do is have a flock of parrots fly over it, the touch-feel equivalent of which is having someone knit for you. I wrap myself in the scarf, her name is Hugsy, that my love knit for me and sit in the tender sunlight by my desk till I get too hot. On bad days, Hugsy doubles as a pillow.
This scarf, I know, is scarcely thick enough to stand the burden of a life, which nevertheless rests upon it.