Xiao Wen Ju For Shushu/tong Spring-summer 2021

Silsila (1981), India

ur in her dms i’m in her boop notifications

got snap?

i have an address where you can send me roses and love letters

In another universe I never outgrew you because you got to grow up with me

Soooo I wrote a poem on Bulbbul

I'm the woman who burnt herself in her own rage's flames,

The one burning down love letters, only to burn her hand seeking them out from the fire back,

The one starved for touch yet

The one who stings if you're near.

I'm that woman whose love you snapped away,

The one whose blood is on your dagger,

The one whose skin's bruised because she fell down the stairs,

the one whom you drove mad.

I'm that woman with kohl eyes, and

Ruby red lips,

The tragedy they pity,

The one no one suspects,

The one, who killed.

MAGDALENE BRIDE

There’s guilt that I retch onto the floor, and my rotting flesh stains the chapel, seeping into the cracks more than any of my prayers ever could. I gnaw at my own ribs, scraping them to pieces. The priest has remnants of me defiling his mouth, and the stoic eyes gaping at me from the pews—painted the same white as the walls, which have long forsaken me—don’t betray their dignity. Their postures are perfect, their suits well-pressed, and their expressions unyielding. The one awaited does not show up; he has become a prayer. Instead, he turns the bend and smiles—a smile that hints at quiet encouragement.

My body hits the floor, my knees bleeding—applauses are what reverberate. The space reeks of jasmine and myrrh, and the cold bite of metal from the cross stings my skin. The communion wafers lie long forgotten, and the sacramental wine dulls with the passage of time.I witness the priest standing a few feet away, his hands trembling with hunger."Young girls have corruption in their minds," he says. The horror of Jesus, hanging limply from the crucifix, his hands bleeding where they’ve been nailed and his feet rupturing flesh, gapes at me with open eyes full of helplessness and dread. A rag—grey with time, stained with his blood that is infected with rejection—hangs at his pelvis. The wooden framework encasing his heart of impotence and throat of meekness withers and cracks in the sun, but the dews remain cold. The congregation jitters and jeers, repulses and admires, devours and purges—they merely talk.

The stained-glass windows have witnessed men and women alike, with the eyes of its saints gouged out and their presence bleached by the sun. The children sink their nails into my skin as they taunt with their smiles, the candles serving them, delighting in the play they call their game. They like their toy. The priest prays at my hips, the altar cold and unforgiving against my back. He probes and digs at my flesh, tearing at it, splitting the skin—it does not tear cleanly. It clings because it lies. It pretends to be whole. The fibers, caught in clumps, wrap around his fingers, the blood soaking into his robes. But the sinews keep winding around his nails as he sinks deeper into the pulp. I witness my gaze burdening Jesus; he trembles, but his feet remain heavy with inaction, his body slack—limp, listless, beneath the weight of his own faithless mercy. It starts slow—a tear—but then my skin stretches and squelches. The audience gasps and gapes, the children laugh, Jesus suffers the terror of ridicule, and the rosary beads are made ever more maroon with blood spooling onto them.

liking people who live in the same city as you is so weird like i passed the flyover that connects our homes you made fun of me for not knowing it and now i do and you probably live here somewhere and i want to click a picture and send it to you and be like look!!! it's the colorful cable bridge near your house!!!! but i can't. because we don't fucking talk anymore 😭

Litan, 1982, Jean-Pierre Mocky

please stop living so far away, I wanna shop my groceries with you