I am Velcro

I AM VELCRO

PHOTOGRAPHY AND TEXT/2020-2021

Exhibited at London Grads Now, Saatchi Gallery, 2020 and MFA Degree Show, Goldsmiths, University of London, 2020

AS SNAILS MOVE ACROSS MY BODY
Text/2021

As snails move across my body, I am Velcro
Placed on my belly, I work to slow my breathing
As they start to move, I feel the skin on my buttock start to moisten and stick to the acrylic finish
I tilt my pelvis down slightly to get more comfortable
I feel my hips, shoulders, arms, wedge tight between the narrow tub walls

As snails move across my body, I worry about squishing one of the babies, or losing one down the drain
I slowly slide my heel over the mouth of the drain
I feel the snails start to break away from my belly,
Moving down towards my pelvis, up my legs,
Into the fold behind my knee,
Into the fold of my arm pressed tight against my side
I resist thinking about my exposed pubic hair, but think about it anyway
Tinged more ginger than the hair on my head
The tightness of the tub starts to feel like a comfortably paralyzing plastic hug

  As snails move across my body, I start to focus on the s
e
n
s
a
t
   i
o
n
s
The tightening cool from paths of slime starting to dry
The weight of each snail, crawling over s k i n
The tiny p r i c k s that resonate across the surface as tiny   mouths pull at tiny hairs
Tiny Velcro teeth pulling away from the fuzzy counterpart
A subtle pain flushes across freckled skin,
One that can be consciously endured without mental r e coil
Beyond the tingling, flutters that actually feels kinda good
Like having your anus waxed, but t on a smaller scale

As snails move across my body, my mind wanders to a another micro invasion
A threat imposed upon my body at a cellular level
T w e n t y-o n e year old Jaz sits alone in a Genetic Counsellor's office
Her sister and brother sitting in separate rooms alone also
A L L of them waiting to hear their respective results from a blood sample taken weeks earlier
She sits pressing her right thumb into the pressure point of her left hand
That point on the palm between the thumb and index finger
Bet ween the soft meaty clump and life line
She does this to quell the weight enveloping her belly and making her feel nauseous
The thumb of her right hand continuously slides out of place
She sits there alone, acutely aware of the pubescent like sweat flooding her palms

As snails move across my body, I think about the Genetic Counsellor’s delivery of my
  positive BRCA2 mutation diagnosis
Her feet planted firmly on the floor, a practiced posture angled towards me
A trained mirroring of calm reflected
Fifteen minutes lapsed and a cloud of medical jargon interchanged with
but this doesn’t mean,
or but you can never know for sure,
and lot’s of women have it,
floated between us
It took so long for her to get to the positive result, that I almost missed it
I left confused, dissociative, fighting to submit to a quietly numbing fear,
I left without hearing what I needed to most,
you will be okay
I left holding a card handed to me with a if you need anything,
and quickly busied myself with making a plan to go drinking at the Maddy
Thursday night

As snails move across my body, I am taken deeper into the fallout of that experience
A day in February, four years after the diagnosis, she took the card out of her wallet,
  and called the Genetic Counsellor from a back office at w o r k
She was t w e n t y-f i v e, having a panic attack and had no idea what to do
She had one therapy session with an oncology c o u n s e l l o r,
They talked about her hesitation to leave home and pursue her Masters, how this made her feel guilty,
and concerns about receiving a call about another one of her mother’s relapses- which never happened, touch wood
They talked about the ways in which she had settled into m a n a g i n g her life around the BRCA2 diagnosis
How she felt pressured to plan for children, a preventative hystorectomy, and subsequent early menopause
How she developed a compulsive need for pap smears and scanxiety simultaneously
How she stopped eating R3D meat unless menstruating
How she stopped eating processed sugars dyed R3D
She stopped eating anything processed altogether
She over exercised, making old injuries worse, and treating new ones as inconvenience
Misplaced intimacy, chased orgasms and toxic romance trumped body autonomy, sexuality and play
She
was (mis) managing
  with
obsessively
seeking
f
e
e
l
i
n
g
s
of
   c o n t r o l
   over
   any
    bodily
   process

As snails move across my body,
I think about the 3 generations of women in my family to have experienced ovarian cancer
As snails move across my body,
I think about how my BRCA2 positive mutation positions me at "a higher risk" for this shared future
3 generations of snails crawl across my bloated belly, my pelvis, my ovaries
Mucin harmonies glide over jagged fissures fragmented by fear
Between all the cracks,
tucked tightly in the tub
there is Velcro,
holding her all together

© 2021 Jazmin Gareau

As snails move across my body, I start to focus on the s
e
n
s
a
t
i
o
n
s
The tightening cool from paths of slime starting to dry
The weight of each snail, crawling over s k i n
The tiny p r i c k s that resonate across the surface as tiny mouths pull at tiny hairs
Tiny Velcro teeth pulling away from the fuzzy counterpart
A subtle pain flushes across freckled skin,
One that can be consciously endured without mental r e coil
Beyond the tingling, flutters that actually feels kinda good
Like having your anus waxed, but t on a smaller scale