Always already a skeleton

[Traducción por venir]

Now the only shadow
that you can leave behind
the only trace that
might be able to state
'I have been here, this is what I am'
is a photograph of your fading skeleton.

A radi-o-graphy.
A photography of rays
and of roots.
The roots of your own self:
a skeleton
a structure
a determinated carcass
a flesh-deprived picture.

To that we have been reduced,
to that we (or you, or I, or her/him) have been taken.
We shall see each other
as we truly are
confronted by the experiment
of an X-ray plate.

Skinny legs, skinny face,
skinny arms, skinny jeans
(but how would skeletons know about fashion?)
[even skeletons are entitled to beauty]
Skinny self, or a skinny face.

You're looking at my photographs,
and then you take the obscene step:
you imagine I'm naked.
'But go on,' I say,
'go on, imagine me more naked that that.'
'How?'
'Picture my bones,
abandon all muscles and make them a shadow;
leave vessels out,
make every organ a grey and formless mass;
imagine that my only Gestalt are my bones.'

But you wouldn't dare to do such a thing.
You're too coward to fall in love with my skeleton.

Instead you'd rather sit down.
Have coffee.
Talk about Deleuze and Rhyzomes.
About infinitessimals,
about roots and desiring machines.

And as we talk about French philosophy,
I imagine my bones are spilling over the sofa,
that the shadow I was is melting,
that after I discuss with you how awful those flowers look,
I might explode any minute.
'Fine, explode inside me.'

I don't want to hear anything any more.
(But not too drastic, you're still after all a skeleton with a body)
I don't want oil prices,
the stock exchange,
financial capitalism,
war on terror,
world systems,
fair trade,
ethnic cleansing.
My own picture is disturbing me, 'I am not Darfur!'
'But you're a skeleton,' you answer.

Melt. Spread. Spill. Drop. Drip. Boil. Burst. Burn. Shatter. Shake. Convulse. Tremble. Blast. Erode. Evaporate. Be sublimated.

Hold my hands on my chest,
and tell me,
if I disappear,
will there be a trace?
will I leave a mark?
will I cast a shadow?
will I cut out a piece of nothingness with my silhouette?
will a stain remain of me?
(or an echo?)
will my body be something more than a body?
more than a collection of vessels pulsating?
more than organs making funny noises?
will I survive beyond my survival?

'It's okay,' you say
'I have a picture of you.'

It doesn't matter.
I still remain a photograph of a skeleton,
hands held tight near the neck.
Always already a shadow
of something beneath, obscured by a flesh which
cannot be loved without a skeleton.
And a skeleton not pretty enough to be loved as such.

But I am wrong.

I would like to think
that my skeleton lies beneath me.
That when you fall in love deeply,
you should go to the deepest part of the body.
But my skeleton is not any more
beneath me.
An X-ray has exposed me,
and I am now on the surface.

But still, a skeleton should be allowed
to claim beauty.
Even a shadow
should claim beauty
(a beauty no more real, no more truthful
than the beauty for 'minds').

The opposite of a skeleton
is not the flesh,
but the idea.
The opposite of a photograph
is not a drawing, or reality, or a lie,
but forgetting.

Don't forget my skeleton, my body, for I can
only be with you in abscence.