fleshglobe leni dancing in my belly stretching your skintent round and rising a rolling block of body be like this in the real world push your boundaries make your way never let it be 060608 ... leni this is the happiest i have ever been, which scares me. what is next? of course i know what is next, but will it be as good as this, as good as i imagine it to be? anticipatory fatigue. 060608 ... leni leni squints upward, eyes adjusting to the sky, and pitches her circus tent in the dusky dawn. the battered canvas is has stripes of yellow and green, but everything looks brown in this light. the goat, obligingly, leads her little cart in through the flappy doors. somewhere inside the kittens dismount. leni threads a rope fence through the low branches of surrounding lilly-pillies, marking off their little plot; more of an indication to the goat and kittens of where to call home, than a fence or a boundary. she pushes the stake of her flag into the ground. it’s limp in the stillness so she lifts it to check that it still reads, ‘refugees welcome. nice ones preferred.’ she kneels down on the gravel and takes a chunk of white chalk from her pouch, about to note a few thoughts down. ‘i’m preoccupied with the beginning of the life cycle right now.’ she sits back, leans on her palms, never comfortable on gravel. she thinks. this is an in-between place. she’s in an in-between place, too. maybe she should go and find a cave. a warm one. dawn and dusk are in-between times. things are changing. boundaries thin: boundaries between realities and people and what is possible and what is not, and life and death. she leans forward and scribbles some more: ‘in-between times are my favourite times.’ they are edges. ‘i love edges.’ is that because she loves nothing real? only what is coming and what is going, never what is? she gets to her feet. not easy, but not impossible. time to untether the goat. 060609 ... leni *** she dreams of boxes made of bones, expanding by twenty-eight percent; of flesh tunnels bellowing effortlessly, fearless; flawless fleshcaves to the light. * the poking feet are up beneath her ribs, she will not come down, not yet. coaxing with raspberry leaves and water ... but there are still things to be done, metaphorical firewood to be collected, food to be stored. it is winter but it is never really winter here. still, there are old ones in the mountains who need things that cannot be done afterwards. * her eyes are half closed, seeing the now and the future through a haze of dream; beauty glimmers through her eyelashes, they screen life like faceted glass. * she dreams of those who would whip her with their truths, stab at her arms with spears of pasts and aversions. she feels the jabs against her skin but brushes them away. mosquitoes, living on their own and others' fear. * she takes comfort in thoughts of her cub, of licking the newborn's skull to shape it, as she saw, some time long ago, of rasping her tongue over its ribs and the breath into it. * and if they must cut her, she will be cut. and if she will die, she will die. and if she never hears the crackling wail, she has still had the honour of carrying her, for this long/short/forever/glimpse of time. * she will dream until the dream ends. *** 060611 ... leni scarlet orb in a golden circlet. shoot sprouting within:white yet green. in the golden circlet, on the scarlet orb 060613 ... superleni she feels certain that normal her would not like this her. this her is lazy, selfish, indulgent, clumsy, stupid, soft. yet this her loves this her. and perhaps that other might too; in a sorry sort of way. in a shaking her head and grinning sort of way, with rolling eyes. she wonders if she would indulge her. she remembers being repulsed by similar others - or were they different? but this her is fond of that her; this her thinks in a new world. how long until she returns? will it ever be a return? or do only new worlds await? she hopes she can one day be that her again, but enhanced, a new her. like love or drugs this cannot last forever. 060613 ... leni forty divided by four is ten: ten months has come down to ten days: or less. feels like less. she's bored. pacing the paddocks and hoofing the dust; restless, wild. still sore and sick, wounded and unwell, that's why she's listless - though there are still lists, always lists at a time like this. it could never be complete, never entirely ready, there would always be many things ... an inner drive to ride rollercoasters, spin go-carts, crash dodgems, turn cart-wheels on the beach, kick body armour hard as she can, splatter paint on a canvas, shout rhymes out a microphone, rip rhythms off a taiko drum, heavy resounding thuds beating of belly and soul, thunder of the spirit, wrecker of silence and peace. confine her? dare them to try. such violence rests latent in her peaceful form. fangs and claws and limbs long to dig and sink and strike; inner eyes flash wildly, teeth want blood. she'll rip apart the calm with a twist of the knife of fate, cut a blind corner in the quiet story, smash down the wooden door, steamroll over the locked gate to what lies beyond where the grass is blue and orange and yellow and violet, red and puce and black. 060617 ... superleni things are stretching and opening beneath her, she's moulding the lips of the vortex, urging the well to soften and thin, to flex and part, soft as an earlobe. she's not afraid of the flesh-tunnel cyclone, she nudges what holds her away. is it time to let you out? i want to cry, to keep you. my childhood done. my duty done. my incubator days done. i am not afraid of the opening; the natural setting you free. i am eager to see your face, to kiss your head, hold you, nuzzling, feeding. you are sheer physiological biological joy, to me. but after, i will be a husk, spent, my duty done. but after, i will be born again, free, renewed. but after, i will be your mother, forever. but after, i will be just as i was before, lush, but proven. but after, i will be a woman complete, and tired and tortured and lit by love. the space-time continuum thins: i see through it now, the net and flex of space and time. life is river; down all/everything flows. a hundred paths span across the distance, and infinite futures arc and flick, live glowing green wires in a naked universe. i will be open; that can be my only promise. i must be open, always. this i know. 060620 ... leni longs to let go of her cape 060620 ... leni her cave is warm, why must she leave it? two perfect days of cool sun, breaking waves, padding through the foam, eyes rolling on the swell. perfect days of light, food, love, and waiting. last days. waiting. 060625 ... leni that cave on the mountain this cave on the sea where the ocean is a deep blue tongue in its open mouth, expanding out into infinity, joined seemlessly to a world-filling, endless, sky. the ocean is salty and lazy in the cave's wide yawn, whose lips and throat are black and cracked. there she walks a jaw-ledge, untreacherous above the water, seeking the little stranger to urge her free, "this way is the sunlight, the sea, the sand, the rivers, the stars and sky, the mountains, you are yet to see. "the path is wide and open, the passage safe, i am your friend, come, you can trust me." 060625 ... leni the clock is set, mist and metaphor thin, ticking coldly down to the threat of reality. midnight, thursday, the wagon will trundle the wrong way, through darkness to too bright lights. under those, in the cold white cage, with reaching probe and the hollow spear things may go badly, things may go well. her hope hangs, little, empty. she knows the scent of fear. it knows her smell. 060627 ... leni * i would cry but it is easier for you if i don't. and you, other you, i could never have you think you had made me cry. * 060627 ... leni with pins he pokes bits of hope back into her. how much of her life is decided by others' points, right now and within she's begun to growl; to grip and clench 'let go in that fist' she tells herself, as the little her beats out a rhythm of life impatient for escape 'let it take me away' she whispers, while the little her dances her final steps beneath the roof of the fleshglobe 060628 ... superleni today is the last day. these five hours left are the end of this the end of us as one. we will be anointed, our parting dance fought for the rhythm of another's drum. i didn't want it to be this way. but the mercies have been many. i count those. tomorrow you begin your life alone, precious flame who burned in my belly for so long, who lights my mind. who will always light my life. 060629 ... leni i am fearless. am i mad? 060629 ... leni tonight i will need my cape. 060629 ... leni the globe has burst! into infinite stars and flashes of life and light ... a miracle in her hand ... : Fleshburst : better than she could have dreamed. 060704 ... leni it's everything to me is red 101011 what's it to you? who go blather from