UTOPIAS // DYSTOPIAS contest winner Retrans My Body ANDIE SHERIDAN
If I were to retrain my body, I would un-fondant the hills of my stomach. (Let’s be real, a knife would be involved.) I would know what wisteria looked like and more specifically, what it looked like wrapped around my forehead. Out of each sparse eyebrow. You would help me pluck them every day: hedging at disbelief. It would look like living till thirty. My hands would be able to be complete, sans you and yours. I would make sure to be mistaken for a cowboy most of the time. Even when my bed became part of my body. (Same as the depression that makes a word-shepherd out of me.) I would retry having a healthy relationship with you. Not sure that it would work, but the effort would be there. Real-talking it over in the mirror before I made a dentist appointment over the phone. Retracting my paper-fish lips’ instinct to swallow themselves. I could bring my mouth to our blowups instead of retreating. You could try not making snide remarks at the tattoos that crop up on my arms like obstinate living.
agave review • 43
