Sinister: a freckled life

[baker,baker]

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






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