They say you can now unbake a pie.

What pie?

Is it this cold thing? Cream-coloured, dotted with clumped butter and grains of flour? Is it this dish of diced apple? Or is it the other one of raw flesh dipped in cat's throw-up - oh, it's marinade - ?

That's an example, they say. They pass beautiful pies around - crisp crust, a small hole in the middle to tell you of its delicious contents. Who knew it could even be anything like that pile of whatever pastry and uncooked is supposed to look like?

Alright, take this apart. Shove the thing in the oven, turn the thing down to a negative four-hundred degrees to undo how heat has denatured the protein and torn apart molecules and fused them back together again. Wait fifteen minutes, each one a note, two notes, three notes as you scribble a mess of a recipe. Done? Take it out - that's the spirit - and then unwrap the dough, unwrap the pastry, pull that filling out and put it back on the dish where it belongs.

Undo, undo, undo.

They say you can now be called an idiot.

(I thought it would be possible. You've done it to me. Why can't I do it? I've never thought you were a fool.)

I'd like you to unbake me again.

Sit us down on the rocks, feeling wind sneak into strands of free-flying hair and the sand shifting beneath our feet, hands inching towards each other - we both know it'll end up in the callouses of yours resting upon mine.

Peel me away: first, the skin, where axons - nerves - buzz under the touch of annoying faces and polite, confusing, boring conversation. You know it's the place where people get on and latch there like it's the last thing they'll do.

You know, so you peel it away, make sure there's nothing you can find. So you wouldn't have the chance to do so, too.

Peel me away: next, the muscles, where fibres push and pull and tense under the mere whisper of raised eyebrows and sharp words. You've seen it morph into a tightrope, illuminated by nothing but your sense of fear. You've balanced upon it, one word wrong and you're falling, falling, falling- but I'm taking your place and you're sitting next to me while you watch me tumble into dark.

You've seen, so you pry the tissue away, massage it into a mess of cells. So you wouldn't have to balance, so you wouldn't have to watch me fall.

Peel me away: then, the bones, the cage that pulls me together and tells pulsing organs to stay; stay so I am whole and functioning. But you know I am not what others see me as. I am functioning. I am whole. I am not coping. I am not perfect. There are fault lines that could crumble the body I have built for myself when a single punch to the gut unsettles me. Blancmange is glossy, like glass, but it is smashed to a puddle of curds and liquid easier than you could imagine. I am the blancmange. I am not glass.

You've heard the disintegration of my structures, so you pick my bones away. So you wouldn't have to be buried in my pieces.

There you go. Laid bare in front of you: a heart, two lungs, systems of vessels, organs. Laid au naturel: a mess of emotion, feelings for you, tears that have long since dried itself into blood, laughter that have long since chortled itself away.

Unbaking is the process of understanding. You take a pie apart to understand how it is made. You take a pie apart to understand what it is made of. You take a pie apart to understand why it has become what it is.

Undo, undo, undo.

Only through the process of undoing will you see the truths behind what is in your hands.

They say you cannot unbake a pie.

I say: you can.

They say you are a fool to think that.

I say: you are never.

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lmao no one ever reads my stuff anymore but I'm still putting it here because I just finished writing it during I&A (inquiry and advocacy) class today :D hope you liked it even though my friend said it was weird lol