With and Without - A Self Portrait of 36 After Chen Chen

With and Without - A Self Portrait of 36

After Chen Chen

With green hexagonal tile. Without a tidy house. With an electric toothbrush. With the Canary. Without the wife. With a drivers license. Without the warmth of my mother's mother's mother. With an insatiable hunger for fantasy fiction. With pickled beetroots glossed across my smile. Without a tan. With small limbs wrapped tightly at night. Without 

                             Them. With loss. Without religious guilt. With prayer. With the burn in my chest every time I read a screen. With her art. Without her’s. With the triptych from New Orleans crafted on storm salvaged wood. With oat milk hot chocolate stained on upper lips. With my mother’s midnight eyes. With my father’s constant phone calls. With my sisters’ unending conversation. Gyda’r Gymraeg, araf ond annwyl. Gyda’r bryniau gwyrdd yn rholio trwy fy meddwl am byth efo’r mor glas llachar fy mamwlad. With the songs of the tree frogs saved on my phone. Without the wooden wardrobes. With his quiet intensity. Without fear of pleasure. With knowing, now, how to say ‘no’ ‘stop’ ‘I’m done’ and ‘that’s not for me’. Without my old body. With the hot pink sequins skirt with the tassels. Without resentment. Without permission. Without yielding. With rest.