“to yelena, our newest food taster. may you last longer than your predecessor”

✪ to begin another end ✪

❦ quiet moments in cathedrals with my lover ❦

ִ𖤐 ࣪self portrait ִ ࣪𖤐

i feel like im walking into a warzone. i press my fingers into the bruise on my neck, at the point my jaw drops and slopes like a cliff. i like the way it still hurts, even a few sunrises later. it’s faded a little, which i know is good, (the generals wouldn’t approve and my fellow soldiers wouldn’t understand). but still, i wish it looked how it feels, like a brand burning with rosyblue light. someone hurt me like they had a right to. someone braided their desire into the thin blood vessels under my skin like flowers in my hair. i twist the stringtwine bracelet holding my wrist together. the sunset strands rise and fall like the canyons that crown the desert. like a thermal map of non-linear healing. it is obviously handmade and not colours i would have picked for myself. it broadcasts like a signal flare that i am loved. someone gave me their time ringed in coloured thread. someone thought of me brought art into the world. i hold it together, and i touch my hands to my ladies’ favours as my heartbeat slows. i am spoken for. someone wants me. someone is waiting for me back home.

memory aid

iii. emergent.