M-I-S-T

ED, Portrait of Mochtar, detail,  acrylic on Mylar, 2014

Behind the vinyl curtain, my bare ass pressed tight against the cool smooth bottom of the basin, the basin gradually filling with hot, hot… 

I definitely am alone here, and the grid of old ceramic tiles cages the misty automatic breath of ventilation. Running water always brings the feeling indescribable in adjectives but so undeniably mine that it makes me believe that it was the first registered awareness of experienced personhood. I hold it before letting run in-between full thighs mixing bubbling amber with clear water. The goose bumps on my shoulders are dissolving, too. 

Silver yearning of the full bladder contains my hidden identity intertwined with gender, and maybe gender first, but what a bliss of beastly freedom to let it stream without changing position without shame or hygienic concern, because it spells, it spills the return to my beginning! 

I am… a diaphanous curtain that hides and reveals

I am a grid of logic, simple and flat: it measures all the shapeless entities and fixes them with points of reference 

I am a mist, and here, especially here in the short, sweet sound formed with four letters, m-i-s-t, I feel my skin again, ah, crawling with delight and a little leftover releases without an effort and overflows the tub 

I am a clear drop of mist on ceramic tabula rasa

I am  a mechanical breath of ventilator as long as the switch is on

I am a white basin containing my body submerged in my own pee diluted in H2O to the point of insignificance 

I am a basin containing something submerged in the pure water, but more importantly - 

I am a drain.