Catching The Sand

Sometimes it feels like my hair is more me than my body is, but that doesn't make sense. Sometimes it feels like little objects and pieces of paper are more me than my body is. That makes a little bit more sense, but a little bit less sense at the same time.

I know I'm me really, and I know that all the things and spaces around me are also me, in a way. But it's all these funny little feelings. The weird, cycling, pressing thoughts that happen all the time to remind yourself you're still alive and that means things are moving and changing around you and inside you all the time. Like the particular kind of contented feeling I get after taking a webcam photo of myself in the morning, wearing a big jumper and a messy bun, sunlight on my freckles and in my eyes, making my irises look more transparent than usual. For a while after that I feel like I really know myself. I really know who I am and what I look like and how I feel. And it's such a pure feeling, like I have grasped myself, curled my fingers around myself and am holding myself tightly in a dome made of my own hands.

But that feeling fades like all feelings fade, into new ones and old ones cycling out and around and back in forever. I'm a machine. Hydraulics and hair. Collecting slipping feelings like sand in an hourglass.