Where do I start? Do I start before the real or with the imagined? Do I start before vows are spoken, or after they are broken? Do I start with sex between parents? Oooh. Do I start with sex between me and ? Do I start in a hospital in McKeesport ? Do I start in a 2 bedroom in White Oak? Do I start with a bad bowl cut and a green down marshmallow coat in elementary school? Do I start with George and his slobbery lips on my 2nd grade cheeks? Do I start with step touch step touch clap clap step touch, three years old in sequins and fuchsia lipstick? Do I start with paper or computer? Do I start with pencil or pen? Do I start with me or us or you or them? Do I start from scratch? Do I start from a book? Do I start from words or from thoughts? Do I start from the womb or the sidewalk? Do I start from here or there or then or now or back or forwards or progression or regression or hypnosis or meditation or drunkenness or happiness or death or death or dying or living or life or life or death or life or death or life or what else is there? Wine. There is wine. Or what else is there? Cheese. There is cheese. Or what else is there? Crackers. There are crackers, water and crackers and water crackers and water. There are water crackers and water and wine and waiting. There is waiting. A lot of waiting and different kinds of waiting.
Melanie Miller is a multimedia artist, political activist, and rare disease advocate. She lives in Philadelphia, PA where she supports her retail therapy habit by writing copy for an interactive ad agency while battling Transverse Myelitis, a rare and debilitating neurological disease that has turned her into a badass-canewalking-ex-dancer-choreographer.