My friend

Death is the only process I trust. Its winding door-slips open with ease and winds all molecules into metamorphic catalysts.  Sweet serenades of calamic chaos. A rhythm that few choose but all will know. 

Space Included Nature

In the darkness two celestial beings met. 

Space: Very few entered the eternal party. In order to be let in, one must have lived a handful of temporal lives and learnt the uniting lessons of their soul.

Aliens get distracted like living things, they change. 

Included: This is a story of action not words. 

Nature:  What is it you said to me, the day we met? ‘You wish I was dead.’ 

That was not easy, after all the fear, after all that time, you still wished that I would die. What is the point of past lives, if you do not join the present. I was shocked to say the least. I could not believe you would say that to me- so confidently you declared this horrible act. 

So of course, I did the only thing I knew how to do. I smiled and said Thank You. 

You grunted and pushed past me into the cue-while I walked to the front, knowing I would be let in- grudges are a sin, in the world of space. 

It slows down everything, even the worlds we create. 

39.

Can I touch you

there- 

soften the skin 

to cling and gleam

to my caress. 

I want you in my bed. 

On my couch, 

By my side- 

As the forest whispers

Please, 

‘dont leave. 

you make me– 

I want to – 

Stay. 

I don’t. 

I made promises. 

Heartbreak. 

Will you mind- 

A short time, 

With me? 

Just enough- 

So you know,

Tender tentacles

Deserve care

I like your short hair- 

Your long legs

Your giggle makes me- 

Want to take you to bed. 

Your skin

Golden to perfection

Delicious and ripe. 

Is NOW enough time- 

To look into your eyes- 

If not, 

I won’t close mine. 

Why?

What is a child, if not a curious soul?  Many wise persons have declared that youth lives in the heart.

So when does a child stop being a child?   I do not believe innocence plays any part.

Our child of death met their maker and keeper. Few things were said and no full answers were given, but this is the way of death. They are a sibling to everything that exists, if you deny their grace and mercy, you will never feel the warmth of their kiss. 

Our child was wise but not wise enough to know that they were missing the question that would take them back home. 

What is fear, if not the desperate nature you try too banish, but must keep close. Only you can say. If you met death, what question would you ask? Would you you run away? Was our child foolish for wanting to stay?  

(In a dark room at the edge of space.)  

Child: I want to know who you are. 

Death: I am. 

Child:I want to know who you are to me. 

Death:I am. 

Child:What is this place? 

Death:(they cluck their large face, back and forth, in disappointment) You have many questions and so little time, small sandman . I feel a more interesting question would be- ‘What am I…..’  

Child: …Not. That was my first question. 

Death: You are not made of the fears you carry like a  locket against your chest. You guard your fears and regrets it like I do the non-living. You are not these things. This is a promise, you must let your heart sing. 

Child:What am I? 

Death: (with a long drawl the words echo around the room) You are everything you imagine yourself to be, small fractals, pieces of sediment, glass, grain, change, molecules you can not contain, yet cannot escape. You gather them together, but they are not yours. At least not in completeness or truth. You are never separated from us, the ones who see all you do. 

Child:But..

Death:Our time is finished. 

(the child stands, their fingers reaching towards the dark. Death smiles knowingly) 

Death:You must leave.

End of message.  

Death Knock

Death: I want to know the story behind your eyes, why they flicker and fly, why they grow my feet with every blink, my shadow lurching towards you, wishing to sink. With every thought that moves in your mind,I become in a new light. I can’t imagine being without you anymore. 

Child: I want to know what you want from me? 

Death: I wish it was that easy. 

Disciplined self indulgence

Do you know what it means to let go? 

Do you know what it means to change? 

I want to tell you a story about a dying cage. The cage was someone’s skin. This someone was rather disciplined, always in control, until they decided to let go. They moved their back towards the sky and bent like a cat learning how to creep in the night. 

They were slippery and messy and it appeared that their love of life was an indulgence they would not release. Death was calling them but they were stuck in between here breathing into green space,wondering when they would change. Caring only about their next breath and how life and death must have been close friends.  

Shape shifter Chronicle

“ I believe in freedom, but not too much.” With a long drawl and deep sincerity my father would saunter and slide this statement like butter. His favourite motto was as diverse and adoptable as my fashion style and his moral convictions. With assuredness and a lack of irony he assured me that freedom could have a limit and that others set boundaries.

   I laughed at his words but embodied his teachings. I unknowingly blindfolded myself with patriarchal understandings of love and white inadequacy. Running towards boys and drunkenly kissing girls in the name of pleasure. I was a lonely desperate person. Until I asked myself “Do I like myself?” My reflection bawled its no.

 I learnt very young, that my body belonged to someone else and as I grew up, I realised the world was a relentless teacher in the same lesson. My life was based on denial and compromise. I had denied my queerness since age 7; I had denied my familial pain and shame since age 10, I had denied and compromised on my sexuality since age 15 and I had had denied and repressed my rape since age 18. I had denied everything that made me “too much” and it made me a sufferable amount of nothing to myself. I decided then that I needed to choose myself.

In 2018, I told my mother I was queer, I moved to a new country, I started my first committed relationship with a woman and I made my first film. By early 2019, I was estranged from every member of my family. I was broke and isolated, heartbroken and an incomplete film, but I was not full of regret. I was hopeful because I could feel my heart for the first time. So everything else just needed to catch up.

In 2020, I planned to sashay through this year with glitter boots, cowrie shell necklaces and self-affirming affirmations and you know what happens next. I was back to being alone, confused and desperate. I needed to swim even when I wanted to drown.

I died with a dream. An endless stream of possibilities and depths became available to me. I took a deep breath and I let go, letting the monsters and mermaids swim through. 

I thought I knew self-love. This was my first mistake and my first lesson after my death. I humbled myself, in my lack of knowledge but began trusting my gut, my heart, and my soul. My boundaries were my own. My body became a home.

I understood these things

1. Shape shifters know death. 
2. Water is memory.
3. I am possibility.
4. The ocean is my mother.

I am a being of water. I am movement that is unknown, although I am close. I roar in the night and glimmer in the day. I am filled with wonder and I do not care for the human eye, but I value their presence and their life.

 I feel most beautiful when I am ravenous tides and gentle waves. When I accept the change. I am all of my names, all of my bodies, all of dreams; I am gulping the air with my heart as my key.

   The majestic Eartha Kitt famously said “When you fall in love, what is there to compromise about?” and so I ask myself why should I settle for being “too much” when I can be the most.

Photography by K/A

a thousand deaths.

I was born from a thousand deaths. 

I was born from a thousand dreams. 

My possibilities, 

Tied to a garden

Where nothing existed. 

Angels know my screams. 

I was born from a thousand deaths. 

I was born from a thousand dreams. 

None of them are mine. 

None of them  guide. 

As we wait for paradise. 

Death is Freedom

A ramble and reflection on acceptance

Death is Freedom

Forgotten and chewed

Never swallowed,

Never bloomed.

Death is Freedom-

Death is new

A lonely beast-

Singing a lonely tune

Fuelled by whimsical delight,

And the fears you cannot keep,

They wonder towards you-

Seeking to bring you peace.

You see a dark street,

You try and walk away-

Hiding from the ghouls that ask you to stay-

Angels don’t wear white,

Wrapped in dark linen and lavender cloth

They play on the fears- you create.

You walk away,

From transformation-

Scared of the breeze

Frightened of the light-

Numbed by your temporal sight.

You are scared of what you will see.

You open your eyes.

You see eternity.

You cannot walk away.

You cannot hide-

Death is freedom

Death wears no disguise.  

Death is where I hide.

Days.

The darkness flies, 

Tapping at my parlor door

Hurling leaves at my feet 

The dark goddess comes to me. 

Midnight flies 

Perched high

Fluttering and Fleeing 

Into curvaceous skies. 

No one hides.

They hide

Dripping in loss

I answer love. 

I give touch. 

They laugh at me.

What a beast.

Tapping at my parlor door

Hurling leaves at my feet

Views i have yet to see

I am dragged to the street

The gasping, noise. 

I stir, 

 Awake. 

Our voice shares the whimpering screams

Of a goddess who bled

Fled,

Into new nights. 

I open my eyes

Tapping at my parlor door. 

I am haunted no more

Photography: Michelle Gutierrez

Soul Talk

Our death signified the beginning of our world. Our death was the birth of a new one. What does this mean? It means that sometimes you must believe and move towards the element you can not control. You move towards what scares you- I know it may be unknown and debilitating to witness but you deserve a space of change, so beautiful you learn to grasp it in new ways. 

Artwork by ASTRO

Mine.

Dead Flowers vibrate in my hand

I know you are beside me, telling me, what I want to hear.

I want to hear ‘you love me’.

I want to hear ‘you are close’.

I want to hear ‘you want me’.

I want to hear everything you can’t say.

Tonight.

Tomorrow.

Forever.

You won’t say a word.

When I hold the flowers you gave me,

I know you are here,

Telling me what I want to hear,

You love me.

You won’t leave me.

You won’t leave me.

Until

Always.