Everyone is more beautiful than I.
They write honest lines.
They don’t wear a disguise.
They don’t hide.
They show their scars.
They proudly carry their marks.
Their burdens,
are responsibilities they share.
They are more beautiful than me.
They share what is inside-
I am a tavern.
I am a cave.
An opening wide enough,
To gather and play-
The depths of the darkness
Are what keep most away.
Who broke your heart?
It happened a long time ago. When my child ran away from home. They ran towards milk and honey. I only know ash. It is not my fault, I spent too long in the valley of lost souls. I had only known despair, so I dreamt myself there- I could have chosen anywhere in the world but I chose a place as lonely and cold as the place I had always known. My mother did not know how to hold me although she tried. I was too young and too bitter to see that spirits feed on beliefs as much as they possess bodies. My possession was a cold one, I gave no fruit.
I birthed her in the fire. I tried to hold her close. Tried to make her feel safe but I drowned her, suffocated her wills and swallowed her needs with my own despair. Death took her slowly, her arms long enough to find her in my enveloping embrace. I have my coal and my ash and I have you, the color blue that reminds me that there are other feelings too.
My loneliness keeps me warm, on dark days- it is my loneliness, I can trust. On dark days, it is my loneliness that lets me know that lets me know it wont let me go, a security that few have given. It wont let me go lightly, without a fight, through clenched hands and a screaming mouth, they plead
“Don’t leave me, please love them, but don’t leave me. Love them, but know when you close your eyes, you return to me. I was your first. Your first key, your first friend, I was the first one to promise till the very end. They will pass and I will come back again. I will hold you tight, don’t let go but rather bring to their light”
I take my teeth,
Put them behind.
Two Tight lips
Locked together with a secret.
I will never tell.
You capture me.
Proving I once existed,
For myself.
This is a conversation from the perspective of an abuser.
At the point of time in which you are reading this story, the survivor has been invisibilized and thus we will call them what they are, a heartbeat.
Heartbeat: (in a slow sultry voice) What do you want from me?
I want your body, I want your heart.
Heartbeat: Is that all?
She laid herself down on the table. She had cleared the plates from our small banquet, we had just finished devouring a meal, I had with care and she had eaten it with delight. She licked her finger, once, then twice and then dislocated her jaw until it was wide enough to take her upper arm, with precision and a gentle ease, she pulled out her heart.
She showed it with pride, I could feel the hunger in my eyes, her skin had a soft sheen, glistening with sweat and I wanted to taste her, take her. Have her.
She tied her arteries and counted the chambers of her heart with delicate hands and longing.
Heartbeat: Is this what you wanted?
I stared at her, shocked, she did it for me, she gave me what I wanted and I wanted more and she would give it to me.
Heartbeat: I told you I had four hearts, when we met. This one is broken, you have taken much of its spark and drained the blood from it with your use of my body like a tool. It is your treasure.
I walked over to her, slowly. She was beautiful, how the blood glistened her chest and teeth, I wanted to see what else she would do for me. I traced my finger along her back, my fingers digging softly into her flesh. She made me feel red. She made me feel hot, there was no one else like her and she was mine, she could not deny the feeling that existed between us, she kissed me back. Her heart was my treasure. Was this love?
I took her body, slowly. With each thrust of my finger, she whispered, “this is it”. I fell asleep in her arms and when I awoke- I was holding her skin, she had shed it for me, she had given me her body but not her bones.
I can’t escape the history of my body. In my body, I am all the people who have passed.
Don’t ask me their names, I call them mother, grandmother and child.
They tell me to accept the person, who I am now.
I stare at my large breasts, I want them to go.
I stare at my tattooed flesh, and remember all the warnings given to me when I was young and supple.
I have been violated, ashamed, forgotten, scapegoated, betrayed and they ask me to accept myself.
I put on my binder and my chest is tight.
My fist sized heart beats with life and half hearted lies.
I know my flesh. It’s soft skin burning all those who hold it too close, I am no exception.
The dead speak,though, they live in me, how can the living accept this easily.
My binder wraps around me.
I feel ready.
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.
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.
Mother told me,
They would not understand.
The slivering desire
Overwhelming each sensation.
Mother,
Tell me.
Why they do not hear,
The commanding call
I obey.
The cries you speak,
Salting oceans and lakes.
Flesh
Becomes meat
You leave me.
I wake,
I pray.
Overwhelmed with change.
Once again.
My friends cry with open wounds.
I asked for a closed tomb.
I want mystery.
Bloom.
My friends cry with open wounds,
I want them to hear the voice too.
Then they will understand why I did
The unspeakable.
Why I did what you asked me to.
I came too early,
I left too soon.
Artwork by ASTRO
I know pain. I have known it well, since I was a child. It was how I realised I was different. I mean; it is how I knew that I was a body. If we all felt this excruciating squeal of fortitude, we would speak about it.
I am consumed.
I wonder what it would feel like, if I did not feel like this. I wonder if I could imagine being someone else. Truly leaving this world and going to a place where I am free, where I breathe effortlessly. Instead I feel like a lizard dreaming of being a butterfly finding the wind after being in a shell.
Would I find paradise or pain?
I will find a body. I will find a name.
The joke is still the same.
I will find something all the same.
Artwork by ASTRO
Ghost: We have many bodies. We need them to survive. If not we may forget you are alive.
Body: I was told to be less sensitive. I wondered what this meant. How could I be less sensitive? What did I need to do?
Did I need to change my feelings? Did I NEED to pretend that I was not feeling? I decided on the latter. I began to speak. Let them know what it felt like to be me. This did nothing. I was still not a body? What did I need to be?
Ghost: Violence can look like many things. Perception is key. If I have a sensitive body then I am more than you can perceive. It changes the nature of our shared reality.
Body: What hurts?
Ghost: You are the first person to ask me that question.
I hurt, sometimes, when I look at you and want to hold you close. I feel the space grow. I do not see FORM. I see possibility. I follow that road and then I see that you chose to follow something else.
Body: What do you NEED?
Ghost: Being human did not help me explain. I want you to need me again.
NEED: NUTRIUNTS EXPLORE ENERGETIC DREAMS
Photography by Darius Iromlou
I want to feel
close –
to-
the
pain.
I want to feel.
near –
to –
the
end.
I want to know,
when
it
will
end.
I want to hear-
you
say
NO.
They are alive.
I want you-
to-
tell –
me.
It was a dream.
I want you to-
tell me.
I want to know this will end.
I don’t know when it started.
I don’t know when I knew
that I was not the same-
As you.
As them-
I don’t know when I knew
You could not see me-
or yourself.
I do not know when I realized
that I had been on my knees-
crying wanting pretending abusing
lying needing losing selling
smiling begging feeling…
betrayed.
Waiting for you to say my name.
I have a name.
It is change.
This is the violence you helped me create.
Welcome to our world. We welcome you to our journey.
It is painful. It is beautiful. It. Is ours. Our pain is shared.
Our grief is yours.
My name is go.st and this is the story of how I became be.st.
Photography Michelle Gutierrez
Audio Slut