PLUSH
Julia Padilla

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We drown when we touch dry and the air becomes soundproof. Do we drool inside a hole, or does the earth clog us up? We collect things we find in the soft parts of the coast. We take thermal baths to absorb salt. We breathe in carbon monoxide, we vomit and fade down the slab path; we pee, call for help, we are tubed and fed with tubes.

    We touch and learn, and everything seems simple like that.

    We incubate new injuries, deep scratches and roses that we have in common. They don't attract pain, they don't smell, and they don't heal. They harbor organisms that live in community; vague species that prepare themselves for self-sufficiency, that compress themselves into the same memory: they treasure a broken secret, from generation to generation. They try to decipher their own appearance, modify the composition of our skins, mutate quickly, and gain territory.

    We wait a long time to be sick, to reduce the pulse and vitality.

    Our hands are directed towards the contact surface. We stop talking to listen to each other. We follow that full impulse, we let our feet follow our hands; our hands interrupt the humidity that holds the air. I picture us as single-celled, listening to the inaudible, with eyes for the dark and temperature maps.

    Carelessness kills; the sun goes down and bugs come.

Alberto Antonio Romero. February 2020