childworld

leah toledano | Spring 2021

There was a child who touched themselves in places the pastors and the preaches and the principles forbade them to. 

The child was precocious and alive, 
and used their body to transform and shape shift 
into things that others wanted them to. 
Although, they didn’t listen to them always, 
going on and on about what to do and how to be. 
No, they didn’t always listen. 

Sometimes the child did the things they wanted to do, 
curious about what their body could do. 
“What happens when I move like this? 
When I think about this? 
When I push and pull like this? When I maneuver like this? When I transform into this?” 

The child was overcome with 
the desire to awaken from a sleepiness. Subdued by obedience. 
The child wanted to be free from mastery, to embody incoherence, to be a failure.
To be a free floating form, flying like the dust particles 
that float around in the morning air of their baby bedroom. 
“‘Awake, O sleeper, rise up from the dead.’”