I felt the mud between my toes and then my body was cradled by the cool hands of the water. In the distance, thunder rumbled across the sky, sending ripples across the water. The air was charged and alive and everywhere was buzzing, fluttering, crying out. I took a deep breath and let the water pull me under, as if falling into a dream. I let myself be held by this under sky, held as I had not been since before birth. Floating in this darkness; this darkness is my home.
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And then we were animals, running through the forest, naked as the day we were born. We made a playmate, a companion of Death as our bodies twisted, turned, tumbled. We were wild with breath and hunger. Drifting with this rock, beneath these stars. I once dreamt I was a mountain, I once dreamt I was a field. Their claws and teeth rifled through my hair while I was dreaming, while I was sleeping.
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This is how an animal smells. This is how an animal tastes. There is water escaping through the drum of your skin. This is how a body dances. The ferns are cracking the walls and Death is there again, watching over us from the ledge. I had hoped that their voices would be singing, I had hoped their voices would be howling. The darkness is soft below my feet and I can't let go. There is a tension that I have always known and I can't let go. The world is a loosely defined, glowing thing and this is what made me. A pile of bones, dancing in an arc across the open plains. To breathe deeply is to make fire with your own two hands. This is how an animal breathes. This is how an animal tastes. I am here, holding Death's hand and we are moving, dancing to the rhythm of the drum that is your skin.
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