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A | Muse | Me

~ Outbursts .:. Myths .:. (some) Truths

A | Muse | Me

Category Archives: Pain

The Comfort of Digital Turtles

18 Thursday Jul 2019

Posted by B* in Close & personal, Cuerpo | Body, Pain, Trials

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I am in pain
Deep, relentless pain

I feel it, it does not go away. It increases when I move around. When I think.
When I smile.

The nurses asked me not to lift anything heavy.
Well, as a woman living alone, there are a thousand heavy things to deal with constantly. Specially, right now. From pumping the wine vacuum stopper to carrying a full water jar for those fresh flowers so essential to my survival this evening. I cannot be asked not to perform these pleasure-production duties.

*

The procedure was uncomfortable.

Pushed around this machine, forced to embrace it furiously, my body crashing against every harsh plastic corner, with my breasts but also my arms, neck, face. It is the most unpleasant type of contortion imaginable. But there you go. I am privileged in that I am tested for signs of breast cancer every year. So I take it. I trust the system. I let them do with me what they may.

This time, the procedure was going further. Needles were going to be inserted as well as a little tube with something that would allow the surgeons to extract a piece of me, from deep down into my breast tissue.

They asked me to look the other way. I found myself facing this turtle.

A turtle on a screen. Followed by palm trees on white sand and turquoise waters. Then the temple of Angkor Wat; a street in Barcelona; infinity swimming pools. Picture after technicolor-picture of glossy dream holidays. On a small ipad, located just there, on top of a plinth placed by my contortionist-torture machine. An improvised – or carefully advised, by expensive consultants – visual-comfort mechanism.

“We know you are in pain. Let’s distract you”

It works. I try to look down into the plastic containers and refuse bag on the floor but it is too demoralising; the pain too sharp; the position too uncomfortable. So I go back to the turtle, the paradise island, the temples and luxury resorts.

There are a few pictures of perfect people in trunks and bikinis. Pictures of feet behind a piña colada. I look and I think: how many of these places have I been to? A little cloud comes over me: how many will I never go to again? They are couple-holiday-type places.

I have not been in a couple for years and years and I do not see me going back there any time soon. Specially not for an expensive and elegantly boring resort holiday. That part of my life is over.

Pang, the pain intensifies.

The turtles are neutral. I can travel and see turtles by myself. Angkor Wat is a neutral distraction too: it was visited by me as a disappointed wife carrying, singlehandedly, her three-year old son in tow. Paradise islands have been walked by on my own, as well, as a newly independent single woman, defying the flirting of waiters hoping for a tip.

Resorts, water skis, petals in bed… are another story.

*

Now I write from my apartment. The moon is performing a seven-veils dance. It is an exquisite sight, a satellite enveloped in a celestial Dior-looking gown. What a perfect framing: a ruffle of semi-transparent clouds partially uncovering a moony shoulder.

I think of the pains, confusions and disappointments of dating in a digital era.

The pain is there, heavily felt. Pouring out of my bandaged breast and my too-fresh-a-memory of dancing to the tunes of the contortionist machine, no Dior gown – celestial, or otherwise – in sight.

So here I am… alone, thinking of the digital turtle that held my virtual hand at a moment of deep discomfort. The turtle that helped me forget the passing of time and the rise in interventions and ugly moments; the normalisation of hospitals, checks and treatments that I so despised not so long ago and are now part of life, my life, opening the gate to many more discomforts and scares to come.

I drink my glass of wine and look at my fresh flowers. My heavy-lifting provokers.
I feel a childish pleasure in disobeying the nurses’ rules.

I feel the pain. While I forget about unnecessary, picture perfect, never-again, fake-dream couple-holidays.

 

Body Parts | Knees

18 Monday Jul 2016

Posted by B* in [Read], Cuerpo | Body, Drama, Pain, Poems

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Tags

Body | Parts

Botanic.:.Hug

“The knees are the ugliest part in a woman”
So said my grandmother
And I believed her

Ugly feas feas

Eunuchs, blind and bold
castrated early out of
their will to seduce

Smiling toothless
bland and fat
stupid and sad

Trapped midway down my legs
they are clogs, idiotic and tender
committed always to serve

Facile, shivering, naive
they show-up under my skirts
shameless wanting needy

Go back where you belong!
Retract to the dark room
of unfulfilled desire

Shut up and cry
the mute tantrums of the ugly
who do not matter

who do not count
who do not shine nor learn
and will never be heard.

*

Body Parts | Rodillas

18 Monday Jul 2016

Posted by B* in [Lee], Cuerpo | Body, Drama, Pain, Poems

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Tags

Body | Parts

Botanic.:.Hug

“La rodilla es la parte más fea de la mujer”
Eso decía mi abuela
Y yo la creí

Feas feas feas

Eunucas ciegas y calvas
Castradas siempre de
su hambre por seducir

Sonriendo sin dientes
Blandas y gordas
Tristes y tontas

Atrapadas a media pierna
Son engranaje tierno
Deseosas de servir

*

Facilonas, tiembloronas
Asomáis bajo mi falda
¡Desvergonzadas!

Volved donde debéis:
Al cuarto oscuro
De los deseos sin cumplir

Callad, llorad, sufrid
Las rabietas mudas de las feas
Que nunca se hacen oír.

*

Body Parts | Teeth

13 Wednesday Jul 2016

Posted by B* in [Read], Cuerpo | Body, Drama, Pain, Poems

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IMG_0352

life’s bruises emerge through my teeth. all the ugliness the pain the holes and darkness concentrate there. amongst these tectonic plates. plates that move. but move slowly. they struggle in their contained space. in this mouth that is so unforgiving and so narrow for them. the mute beasts.

*
ivory monsters they are. silent and watching. rooted but wanting to get out. sharp sharpening. cutting through. pressing so much. in the corners. to the front. they want to move. they push forward. they reveal their hidden bodies. flesh withdraws. gums letting them get their way. very very slowly. like flowers you’ll never see them grow. never see them change. but oh they are scheming and gaining territory. yes they are.

*
this lazy gullible tongue sleeps inside them, unsuspecting. this tongue oozes her fluids and unwillingly, helps them. tongue helping my scheming dangerous teeth. these teeth who know so much of pain and fear. these teeth that have always been there. and want and need so much. and will use so much. and will win.

*
they will devour what is left of me. they will emerge the victors. in my mouth and out. they will crack my face open and transform flesh to precious living bone. they will grow and make of me a yellowing white mask. a living treasure. a crown sprouting from the inside. biting and gnashing. beautiful. terrible. primitive. unstoppable. t-e.e:t~h…

*

Hole

20 Wednesday Apr 2016

Posted by B* in [Read], Pain, Poems, Sed | Wanting, Visuals

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Version 2

How do you write a black hole ?
How do you draw it, in words?

~

 I cannot write about it
I keep failing
I can only get close to it, drawing.

Black ink & charcoal
on crisp white paper.

But, the words…
[oh, no]
I get trapped in clichés

 Is this black hole really black ?
Is it a hole ?
Does it drag me down ? Or up ?

.

I need this poem.
And yet
I suspect it is all fake.

.

 The hole
is the expected unfolding to this drama.
Its desired [anti]climax.

Draw it, I try. But…
I keep failing to describe it.

I need angles
Black inky staccatos
Teeth
Caves & tunnels.

~

The words,
fail me.

 This is how the hole looks like, I tell myself.
But this is not how it feels.

.

Broken grammar

18 Monday Apr 2016

Posted by B* in [Read], Pain, Poems, Sed | Wanting

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No words.
Never out loud.
But the plate
is smashed
against the kitchen tiles.

There was also a teapot,
some years ago.
A teapot, in glass. Crashing, too,
against another kitchen.

Shards,
rather than words,
screamed on the tiles.

A sentence.
A few.
Spelled out in china or crystal.

These shards form
an unsaid story.

It is written,
meticulously,
through a myriad
sharp
clinky
pieces
forming a long
shiny
unpunctuated
sentence
on the floor.

*

Stranger at home

30 Wednesday Mar 2016

Posted by B* in [Llegeix], Barcelona, Close & personal, Love, Pain, Places, Poems, Raíces | Home

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Sóc estrangera, sempre.
De naixement.

Doble García,
mai un escut que obrisi portalada gran
a la seu
.            de les cent families.

Canaletes, la meva font,
em farà tornar, un i un altre cop.

Engaxada a les aigües
hi estic, sí,
ahir, avui i sempre.

Enganxada
al blanc i negre ronyós
(que ja quasi no es veu)
de les Rambles, Bonsuccés
de Colom
del Raval
del Born.

Enganxada. Enverinada.
I una mica
.                 espantada.

Angoixada
per la boira sentimental
de qui és turista permanent
a casa seva.

No veig be.
No sé on miro.
Escolto, i no entenc.
Toco i no sento
.                    el que recordo.

Cent families.
Les endevino, al Passeig.
(Les fardades globals, d’ara
no han ofegat, encara,
les fardades casolanes, d’enguany.)

Sóc benvinguda, sí.
Però de passada,
de camí enlloc,
.                     de visita.

*

Vinc del blanc i del negre.
De l’estretor, pudorenca,
de Ciutat Vella.
Però visc en brillant technicolor
a l’altra banda de la frontera [inexistent]
que és aquesta, la meva   [home away from home] 
.                       guiriland, eterna.

Vam marxar. Tots.
Al mar i a la muntanya.
A les illes.
A continents. Varis.
Als marges nets
.                       de poble i cruïlla.

*

Sóc estrangera
a casa meva.

.        I remain foreign
         To the one hundred
         To the 6 million
.                      (els sis, i tant, de l’infantesa).

Sóc visitant
[entusiasta. distant]
de la llengua
dels costums
de la gresca.

Sóc turista.
Però segueixo enganxada.
Enverinada, sempre
per l’aigua
per aquesta ciutat
palau de cent només, potser
pero llar [parcial, contradictòria]
de centenes. Milers.

Segueixo enganxada,
al seu blanc i al seu negre.

Barcelona-CentFamilies

*

Veneno

06 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by B* in [Read], Cuerpo | Body, Fear, Pain, Poems

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IMG_7622

It did not knock at the door.
It just entered
and went straight to my room.

It spread its arms and legs
growing large, in silence
like a mist of gas and snow.

It took over flesh and bones.
Quietly.
An army of ghosts.

My mind refused to surrender.
But I quickly lost hands
and tongue.

It was difficult to know
what had happened.
What was, now, home?

Possessing all I own
a new, uninvited, lodger
was devouring mind and soul.

*

Now, it is later.
My eyes open like a window.
I listen to a new light.
I can hear resistance.

In my body’s garden,
a guerrilla against this poison
is growing strong.

 

Rio de Janeiro, 4 August 2015
[An ode to the wrong antibiotic]

The unhappy good life

11 Thursday Dec 2014

Posted by B* in [Read], Pain, Poems, Sed | Wanting

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IMG_8771

Happiness or wellbeing?
What’s good for you is not necessarily what makes you happy.

I’d take difficult unhealthy exhausting happiness any time. [so I write]
But I have failed.

I saw the abyss, then closed my eyes.
I went for safe comforts instead.

I keep closing my eyes, in this tidy garden
and I think,
.      [comfortable. scared]       
.                 this neat empty wellbeing I’ve settled for
.                                                                             will kill me.

 

*

Poe | trying

  • Negroni
  • Disfraces
  • .:. HairTrees .:.
  • Email sent to my own sentences…
  • El niño Jorge
  • Obedience and Seduction
  • Francis Bacon, chez le Pompidou…
  • . Paris . Boulevard Voltaire .
  • . Paris . Brussels . Berlin . Athens .
  • A room of one’s own | or | Las Moscas
  • On art blockbusters, global cities & the impossibility of contemplation…
  • What is the problem with mushrooms?
  • Stupid Machines. Please
  • The Comfort of Digital Turtles
  • Hombre o no…
  • How to break a woman
  • The lovers, fight
  • Granada Palermitana
  • Azul | Sepia [audio]
  • Perfection is easy and impossible
  • Drawing on Trains
  • Agua
  • Llena de vino azul
  • La mujer que hablaba…
  • Alunece en el trópico
  • Boracay | Sunset
  • Hacking Ricardo Basbaum?
  • Tattooing the page
  • Margins
  • Batas
  • 19th Floor
  • Blue Monsters
  • Me gusta
  • Me duele
  • Black Feast
  • Llibre
  • Rosa
  • Beauty in the Olympic City
  • Body Parts | Knees
  • Body Parts | Rodillas
  • Body parts | Feet
  • Body Parts | Teeth
  • Body Parts | Nails
  • Body Parts | Hair
  • Empty Planets
  • Refusal | Certainty [labyrinth]
  • Beautiful problem
  • Botanicisms
  • Woodland Textiles
  • Women .|. Age
  • Facing the monster inside
  • New ink | old Pages
  • Azul | Sepia
  • Goddess
  • Time to murder and create
  • Type Fest
  • The visitor
  • Why this…
  • Brujas are less tall
  • Rosa | Llibre

A | Musing | Me

** Wanderings * Rants * Poems * Truths * Exaggerations * Pretensions * Flips * Insights * Myths ** And many of those conversations I should stop having just with myself

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