Your hands brand my skin, torches and hot wax, sealing off
My body, burying my soul inside. You promised me love in
The form of a kiss and you robbed me of hope as your arm
Oppressed my throat. You looked at me and knew that nobody
Would ever look for me. That I had been born and nobody ever cared.
That I felt so left alone, I’d march voluntarily into your exploitative swamplands.
You tore my soul away from my body, decontextualised me.
Baptised me with new names and burned me into nocturnal rhythms.
You let them shred me to pieces and I would disappear beneath my skin.
I sang my own requiem as they exhaled on my face and I detected decay.
Bringing me closer to my own and they made me part of themselves and
What becomes distorted in their brains and purged themselves of me and
I would still remain shackled, never become a woman, always a girl never allowed to grow.
“Zorka Wearing a Blue Blouse, with Green Casket” by József Rippl-Rónai (1861-1927)
