Evidence next to the kettle

The hand throbs. That's the whole page really. The webbing between my thumb and forefinger has this deep, tidy little mouth in it now and every time I reach for the kettle or the mug I remember it. Tape and skin. That's my left hand at the moment.

I photographed it. I don't know who that photo is for. Maybe me, maybe tomorrow, maybe no one. I photographed the blood on the closed cover of the eleven-page notebook against the cut on my hand, both of them in the same frame, and I think that means I have started a correspondence with myself I don't want to read back.

The skyline notebook sat on the high shelf all day at work. I could feel it the way you feel a turned-off phone. When I got home I read the new line aloud. The building has hands. I wanted to hear if it would sound stupid in my own voice. It did not sound stupid. It sounded like something I have known for a long time and have been refusing to write down until tonight.

Tomorrow Yu-jin gets the tooth and the hair. I have kept them in a kitchen drawer in a flat with fairy lights and a sleep dress and a pot of ramyeon staged for the camera and I think that is obscene. Real evidence next to a kettle. I am relieved and also I will miss the drawer being mine. That is a strange thing to admit on the page.

Yesterday I ruined a man's trousers in a gallery. Tonight I bled on a notebook. At least tonight it was my own fault.