Writings

Untitled (2021)

by Isla Davie

What is home

Where is home

What is homesickness

Where is homesickness

Is it in the belly

Home of digesting, processing, feeling, being

The softest part of the body

softest part of the soul

Maybe home is the womb and we're all born homesick

A bag of warm water

A soft place to rest

to swim

to be held

A mutual feeding

belly to soul

soul to belly

Feedings of love

of rememberings

of warmth

familiarity

home

Comfort food

a bowl of soup

a slice of toast

a cup of tea

How does the belly know we're missing comfort before the mind does

A gut full of hunger

full of thirst

Does the belly ever sleep

Is there another place as soft as a belly

Maybe only internally

Maybe a pillow

Maybe in water

Swimming, being, floating

Indelible swims

Suspended in space and time

Simultaneously inwardly present and completely distant

There's comfort at the bottom of a swimming pool

To swim is to be held, like we once were

A resumption of a natural condition

Held in the liquid that our bodies are made in and made of

Held in ourselves

as young and as old as water can be

Is water the same thing as love

Flowing through everything we know

always moving

mixing

equally familiar and unfamiliar

knowable and unknowable

Mutual seepings between self and other

Body touching water touching more water touching the whole ocean

The bluest eye

formless

floating

mixing

impregnating

dancing

dripping

dissolving

merging

I know you can't wash in the same river, even once

Particular moments hang together

sleeping

breathing

dreaming

swimming

crying

reflecting

remembering

realising

comfort, discomfort

balance, imbalance

decision, indecision

absence, presence

Why does everything feel like part of the same thing

A thin thread of recognition

tangling

detangling

Dripping through states into the same pool

feeding on time

feeding on mine

A story

A truth

An involuntary state

Maybe a purer state

Indifferent to presence

Closer to self

Where truth and reality don't permit themselves to be put into words

Where do words come from

From which brushing of voices were they born

What brought them into our mouths

into our ears

through our hands and onto paper

trickling from mouth to soul

The belly

a bag

Equally carrying and being carried

Gently rounded

breathing, moving, swelling

like water

The cosy light of deep sleep

where dreams are like swims

and where sleep drops into quiet wells

Where instance and eternity are the same thing

resting

like a young bird in your palms

Every now and then

lightly press one hand on your belly and one on your chest

Close your eyes

Like a drop of water, drop down, be held

Here you will find a love that no one remembers

This piece of knowledge is something that your heart has always possessed

The first time I did this I cried

To cry a tear

a piece of water

eyes dripping blue

Tears allow us to see

I wonder what it means to swallow a tear

Take it back in, reclaim it

A belly full of tears

A belly full of tenderness

A belly is the softest pillow, I think

Soft, warm, liquidy

like love

A soft place to rest

Rest

Where is rest

In the space between words

Between breaths

Under closed eyes

Between touching bodies

The space between a meeting of eyes

The space between heavy head and soft pillow

The space between that which silence divides

The blue space between stones on the beach

In the grass, on the underside of each blade

In the morning, on the kitchen windowsill

In the smell of changing seasons

I almost cry at the sweetness of June

These things are never old under the sun

They are new

everytime