Initiation
| I beg you to paint colours, flash lights, breathe scents, whisper or scream … from the other side. They all trick you: every colour, light, scent and voice. Alone – without images. Alone – without sound. Alone — without fear. Alone – like no other time before. From the top of a white cliff I let out my silent scream. A well-worn mattress was her wedding bed. This is where her children were conceived and were given birth to, and this beaten mattress she will carry all her life like a snail carries its shell. She sweated. She had to cut at least a dozen umbilical cords that night. I won’t wash my clothes, I won’t comb my hair, I won’t air my room, I won’t close the door behind me. Leave me alone! And they left me alone. Don’t hurt me! And they didn’t hurt me. Don’t love me! And they didn’t love me. Love me! And they loved me a lot. I pull the wallpaper of the room like a blanket onto myself. First relief without any pain. My skin, my flesh, my bones remember. But not I. A debauched woman gave birth to an unblemished child. Is this the Creator’s gift, or is it his punishment? I don’t dare to touch you so as not to taint you. It was a child who fished me out of the river with no bank. Someone knocked at the door. I opened the door. The man sat down in the middle of the room. I didn’t turn on the lights so that he would not see my naked body. When he kissed my umbilicus, I began to cry red tears. Why do we put headstones only where people are buried? Why is it only there that people make pilgrimages and bring flowers to? Where people are conceived and given birth to – why not there? |
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V. Z.
This post is also available in: Hungarian
