Not all things can be beautiful

The frog song grates in the ears and your face scars with acne and age

And besides, beauty is mostly incidental, evolutionary
bright butterfly wings announce poison
striped fish camouflage in seaweed

Flowers grow more beautiful with each generation of gardener
splicing genes and selecting mutations
saying to each small genetic variation
I choose you, I choose you, I choose you

In the dark I run my fingers over new ridges of stretch marks
My hips are taking unfamiliar shapes
my body is forming itself of its own volition

It too is a product of evolution
of the best child-bearing hips and load-bearing shoulders

This body is the product of those not left behind—
a baby wedged behind too small hips
the fish eaten, the birds unchosen, the butterflies attacked
a gardener telling the rest of the plants every year
not you, not you, not you

Even if incidental, there is beauty
candy floss sunrises and bird song
women who live to be old and wear enough wrinkles for all who don’t
a gentle touch in the night
someone finding you in the dark, the light, the mirror
and saying I choose you, I choose you, I choose you

When I stopped my period I started having vivid daydreams of blood extraction

I would lie on my back, arm out, and feel the blood being pulled out of me
The thin pale crook of my arm pulsing

My body acting out its routine blood loss

I never was good at change

I once watched someone take a thirty-minute-long exposure photo of the night sky
Camera fixed on a tripod, looking up
The developed photograph showed arcing streaks of starlight

And I thought—I could do that
Stand still while the sky turns
Making an art of staying fixed in place

tear off the perforation on the front of the box

I lie so still
I must be waiting
for something

cut a 5cm x 5cm ‘X’ in the bag

I listen to the voices above me
feel the movements around the room

wipe the front face and a razor blade or sharp knife with alcohol-based hand sanitiser

It all hurts too much
The sunlight, the sound, the air against my skin

remove any bacteria which can grow on the substrate

I lie for so long I think I can feel the fibres of the couch grow around me
The little blue threads clinging and crawling up the sides of my body

opening the entire block to the atmosphere will cause far too much growth and waste the energy in the block

I think I’m supposed to rouse now
but I have forgotten how to move

When the fresh air and humidity hit the exposed substrate under the cut, primordia should form

This lying in wait is actually a coiling
tighter and tighter, getting ready
for the moment I spring forth,
and it seems as if I was always there
effortless, fully formed.

This is the part you have been waiting for.

* Source note: All italicised lines are taken from the box of the “Italian Oyster Mushroom Grow Kit” from Oak & Spore.

For more information go to:
https://www.oakandspore.co.nz/blogs/mushroom-grow-information/mushroom-grow-kit.