Horned

the abundance of being witnessed

Horned

Today I wear only my skin

to remind myself how dangerous I am.

This body is a song sung to the dead,

this mask I wear, my weaponry.

Just this morning there was no sunrise,

only a flat silver sky like a molar glinting

from the back of my mother’s mouth.

After the breakfast dishes and before

the performance of work, I slipped into my skin

and walked into dense woods.

Cutting a path across moss, I was a dead deer,

a milk cow past its prime, all bones and horns.

And still, I offer all I am, my body, my flesh,

as a gift to myself, to the moss, to the silent trees

and distant sun, the memory of leaves,

the memory of moving water.

Sing with me: this body is a prayer,

like silk in the dark, a blade slicing through

the limits of this one, small life.

//

I have been photographing my own body. This is not something I tend to do. But as a seeker of gold stars, if you give me an assignment, I’ll do it. And this month’s project assignment in Memory Cult is Autoarchive: placing your own body inside the frame alongside your people.

Curiously, when I first heard the assignment was about self portraits, but had no other details, I already decided I was going to do it this way, together with my loved ones. Why? Many reasons, but first and foremost because when you have 3 beloveds die in the span of a year, you find yourself searching your archives for photos with them. And if you’re me, what you find is thousands of photos of people you hardly know together with their loved ones, and hardly any of yourself with yours. So, I am working on it. And it is hard.

Why is it hard? Well, the logistics of it for one. The way I know how to photograph is by looking through a viewfinder, and responding to what I see. In front of the camera, I can’t see. Also, gosh I love to feel in control, and even when I set the camera on a tripod and ask someone else to click the button, I am no longer in control of that shutter click. And I can’t see myself. What are my hands doing!? My hair? I have no idea. I still don’t. I’ve just dropped off two rolls of film full of attempts to get myself in the frame.

As a creative get around, a control compromise of sorts, I also returned to an experiment I tried a couple of years ago and loved. Double exposures. I photograph someone, in this case Ben (my generously willing partner), then hand him the camera to blindly make a photo of me, layered overtop. There is something about the absolute lack of control of how they will look, that feels curiously liberating to me. Yes, I get to control one shutter click, but the rest feels like a mystery, out of anyone’s control. What it feels like is play.

The constant intention to please

leaves you in a cage of scarcity

but if you meet each person

as the peculiar and rare

brood of particles you are

you may come to rest

in the abundance

of being witnessed.

I came across this quote by Maria Popova the other day, and it articulated something essential and unspoken for me. May we all rest in the abundance of being witnessed.

for more of Meghan’s award winning poetry - Meghan Sterling

for more of my photography - Eliza Bell Photography