Excerpt from Sprawlthe time it took us to forget
By Manahil Bandukwala & Conyer Clayton
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We are in the hadal zone.
Pressure high, population low. Please, less low. Some places in the world have always been scarce. The deeper you go, the more transparent bodies become. But our weight. We sink. But our density. We fight. We just bump around the darkness. Right now, I think of myself as a glowing little shrimp. There are so many of us in the world but we rarely find each other. Still my body glows. Please notice me! Across the salt plains! Please notice me! Across the street. We go on walks but I step into the road whenever someone approaches. We're in this together but please leave me alone. We're in this together but please
leave me alone. We write in we, that is something not yet taken away. We tells us of our resilience. From distance I wrap my arms around another body. It feels the pressure of my palms ghost across it. Soon, I forget touch. I think of myself as a backyard squirrel waiting for garden parties to forage scraps. How can I tell it that summer is late this year, that winter has been prolonged. Keep the sweaters out. Keep the stovetop burning low. Spices simmer in we, we drink our cups in separate rooms. Manahil Bandukwala is a Pakistani writer and artist currently based in Mississauga. She is co-lead of Reth aur Reghistan, a visual-literary exploration of Pakistani folklore that she is carrying out alongside her sister, Nimra. See more at sculpturalstorytelling.com. Her work has appeared in CV2, The Malahat Review, PRISM, and other places.
Conyer Clayton is an Ottawa-based artist who aims to live with compassion, gratitude, and awe. Her most recent chapbooks are Trust Only the Beasts in the Water (above/ground press, 2019), / (post ghost press, 2019), Undergrowth (bird, buried press, 2018) and Mitosis (In/Words Magazine and Press, 2018). She released a collaborative album with Nathanael Larochette, If the river stood still, in August 2018. She won Arc's 2017 Diana Brebner Prize, performs sound poetry with Quatuor Gualuor, and writes reviews for Canthius. Her debut full length collection of poetry is We Shed Our Skin Like Dynamite, from Guernica Editions (2020).
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