In Baba’s House, a Pair of Rainboots the Color of Lemons Is Desire

& desire was freedom.

When Baba said no, I hid underneath the bed, another sign that I was free.
That image was an anomaly.

Or, an experiment, you might say, where my skin is a magnolia, defiant,

& Baba’s confusion

I don’t understand not even raining outside

was a lie.

ξ

Of the Dream that is My Life, This is My Nightmare —

Rodin —

It is the mud I must cling to now — earth beneath a cracked foundation, & you in its place. A memory of my youth: two girls digging in the sand for clay. We were told you could find clay if you dug in sand deep enough. Two girls digging for clay. A handful of sweat and strands of hair wet in my mouth. Giggling at the constellation the grains patterned on her thigh. Suddenly, and slowly (is that possible?), an ant bed emptied in my lap. Your love is like this, a thousand teeth crawling their way over me, their marks just invisible enough to seem an overreaction. I’d rather drown myself in the quicksand of my dank flat than be attached to you. I love you too much, really, or perhaps, I love the bodies I form out of the earth, & hate your fingerprints, like slugs eating away at their brilliance. Yes, brilliance, I said. I think I’ll get my brother to buy me a gun, shoot a hole in the head of every sculpture you’ve destroyed with your influence. You think you’ve influenced them all? Alors. Then, at least, they’ll have a common thread. I’ll call them “Gunshy: A Series of Sculptures Devoted to Man’s Right of Access.” It is the mud I must cling to now — you & the earth I resent with my unkempt face. Yes, I know. That Claudel — she used to be so beautiful. I don’t want to cling anymore. I wish the mud — o, my precious material — which, like a paste, has turned my body into a condemned building, nailed to the willow’s roots — would stop this now. Enough with your foolishness.

— Camille

ξ

Addie Tsai is a queer, nonbinary writer and artist of color who lives and teaches creative writing, dance, humanities, and literature in Houston, Texas. She received a master’s of fine arts from the MFA program for Writers at Warren Wilson College and her PhD in dance from Texas Woman’s University. She is the author of the young adult novel, Dear Twin. Addie is a staff writer at Spectrum South, fiction co-editor at Anomaly, and the founding editor and co-editor-in-chief at just femme & dandy.