dear sinister, i have a freckle on the palm of my hand. he's right up here in the corner, hesitating before he crawls out onto the diving board of my first finger, leaping out into the world, and making a name for himself as a famous gymnast or a senator. i can see his ambition -- he has a bold set of shoulders and a strong chin. but his posture has fear in it, like a small child who doesn't want to get too close to the edge of a tall and dangerous precipice. i can identify with this sort of feeling, and i'm not going to pressure him too much into leaving me just yet. but every time i see this freckle, i must admit, i am quite surprised. it has been on my hand for as long as i can remember, and for as long as i can remember, i have never felt as though it belonged to me. it's not MY freckle, you see. he doesn't seem to belong to me, and i don't like thinking of him as a part of me. i keep expecting to look down and see him gone. i think that lots of people feel this way about parts of their body. i'm not talking about the feeling of not LIKING a part of myself, though -- just about being strangers with it. like the people you knew in school, who you sat through classes with everyday for nearly a decade, but who never seemed any nearer to you than they had the first time you met them, trembling nervously, on your first day of kindergarten. i only mention this because i'm starting to notice that there is another freckle that's appeared, in another place. except this one is not on my body -- now, it seems, i'm developing a freckled life. this freckle is not a stain. it is not a mole or tumerous growth. freckles, you see, come from being in the sun. they are like little permanent hickies left from all the times i stopped to let the sun kiss my body without interrupting. i might talk now about the horrid mess my life has been lately. a car accident, a dog bite, wallets lost and found, fighting, making up and fighting again, botched surgeries, hideous scars... it would never really end. but these things are natural to me. these catastrophies and tragedies and fuck-ups are so familar, in fact, that i think of them as my own skin. and on my face, and on my shoulders, in this pale complexion of disaster, there are a healthy number of freckles -- indications that i've allowed myself enough time with that bright ball of warm light to be marked by it. i have had moments, i have been loved. i went outside for awhile, away from everything, and this is what i came back with. but no, no, no. you don't hold the palm of your hand up near the sun. and this little creature near my finger is evidence of a different kind of light. he is alone, and while i do not feel like i deserve him, i am not asking him to leave. and in my life, i have made a friend, in a very distant place, and i think of her now when i am looking at my hand. she shines on a different bit of my skin, and i can feel a mark being slowly burned there. and though i may never feel entirely deserving of that light, or that light's kiss, i am hoping all the same for a hickey, as permanent evidence, a mouth-shaped mark to scandalize the kids back home. love, baker,baker __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness http://health.yahoo.com +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+