(this is mostly so I can post hese on tumblr)
Veils
we grow used to seeing ourselves through veils
the veil of the cradle
of love
of the night
of lies
one day, we're so enveiled
we can no longer tear the veils apart from the flesh
the gauze thick with blood clotts
clotts the gaze
tear off the veils and the flesh is raw
blood flows
---
Spider webs
Once upon a time your words stuck in my mind like spider webs.
Today the spider webs in my mind are memories of other people, with different words. Of your words, only this one sentence remains, this question. You said, one day, after an argument and a confession, but still no forgiveness: that you had never even imagined that I too could have suffered.
Never
My suffering, as if cast in glass
Transparent
My suffering silent, hidden
in the back of the kitchen cupboard, behind the porcelain for special occasions,
stacked as glasses without even a napkin between them
and when I try to unstack them, they're stuck
together by the weight of time
even light things, left alone for years, they weight
and mark
and hurt
even our own body, if still, hurts itself.
---
The Woman and The Victim
It's no accident that "vítima" is a female word,
I think,
every time I hear those stories of violence
Meanwhile a boy is battered to death
by his father
for enjoying doing things - girl's things -
such as washing dishes -
Meanwhile a woman is under arrest
- all restraining orders violated
helpless
she welcomed her ex-husband home
with a gunshot.
--
In my body
the identities of the Woman and the Victim
challenge each other
each certain
to be the other
--
Road.
A man and a woman speak
- neither of us is straight
all are white -
about a violent story we watched at school
She
talks about trauma
she was too young
the scene, too strong
- a group of men rapes a housewife -
She, being a woman,
immediately puts herself in the victim's shoes
Safe in her chair and - violated.
- The Spectator
Through her body
the violence
of all the men in the world
over all the women -
He
was young enough
to never have actually questioned
the nature (his) of violence.
He, being a man,
questions
putting himself in the shoes of the monster.
- The Spectator -
"A Great movie", he says,
"Everyone should see it."
- through his body the violence
of every man
- potential -
My body,
neither his nor hers,
Mixes, muddles
both experiences
- completes -
my body was old
precocious
already hairy
little red riding hood inside the wolf
- Victim - I instatly related to the woman
, but
precisely because it hurts
I wear also the hide and the fangs of the monster.
--
It terrifies me
to imagine that even earlier, I
(could)
- before I became -
could have been born a victim
(how much scarier)
could have become a woman through the stories
But it's precisely because it hurts
that I enjoy violent stories.
With wolf eyes I watch
the violence
and with wolf mouth I ask
- is it possible to tame a monster?
With wolf nose I search
people
my peers
are the ones bleeding
--
It's no accident that Victim is a female word
We men are Blue Beard, Beast, Wolf, absent Father-King and Prince Charming
fighting the monster that is us
We women are little red riding hood, snow white, and Blue Beard's wives,
and Beauty
watching the fight of the beast-men
We survive on their scraps
transforming them
or transforming ourselves into them
, but, for us, men, this way out is closed
(this rereading)
we monstrify ourselves and wait
for a woman who will humanize us
who will redeem us
and give her life for (to) us
- No,
the way out is to die
at the end of a western movie,
monster to the end.
- dead before feminine -
, but,
for us women the end is mourning
or death
buried in glass, or under a house,
melted by fire or by water
or married to the King, or to Blue Beard.
