between class, a meditation for mediation:

Upon evaluation, I fail to recognize the new presentation that shows itself on the surface of reflection. I take notice that my skin no longer stretches tightly to the circumference of my face. Reminded by retrospect of how it once clung to the contours of my cheeks—those feminine and exquisite structures that were shaded and shadowed by depth. Reminded of a, now, distant reflection whom even at a distance was recognized for the carvings of her cheeks, the moldings of a sculpted stature. This season’s displayed face falls like an ornament, wears weight as if, by excuse, dressing in extra decoration was necessary for the revival of a new celebrated year. This is an embellished truth that to the ridicule of the host is not favored by second and third parties. To no avoid, it falls gracefully over the trunk of my neck but it hangs to its embarrassment below all the mounting adornments that demand immediate fascination. I am held in sight by this emerging visibility—this mask that wears itself differently on the scaffoldings of my face. Aware that in winter, we weather differently and must assume alterations to the exposed appearance. This is a condition, and nature must continue forth, regardless of my persistency to take time and wander backwards with it into inexistency. She is no longer here, only half alive in the framed fixture of a photograph that is locked in time and manifested in a moment. She, miles of hours and spaces away, is related to the “I” I am now writing from but she does not share the same eye. She is there: a number beneath the diction of my name, a faint face that slowly fades out of focus from the film that once made her real. She is still pervasive in an aroma one can find and breathe. But, even after falling in clouds around you, she can’t be tangibly touched and held. Here am I, with full-figured cheeks that have rose to the surface, whom curl beneath the green seas of my expansive eyes. And how, really, did this variation become if wasn’t entirely appropriated by charm? Where have the shadows hidden, if they were not cast into the hearts of young men—if they have not sunk beneath the bedding of a dream? Perhaps during the night when the mirror’s faces had busily kissed the walls with their backs turned out, it was the layer of a writer that threaded itself through my skin. Maybe this new material has made my coating thicker, my substance dense and heavy. I review the body of my new art form and speak aloud for the first time, “I am a writer and must commit to tasting the world.” Smiling, my cheeks swell in approval, “My rising weight will actively feature my increasing knowledge.”