Inspired by Kieran Halpin “Salt into the wound”
It would not go without a fight, that night, opposing the approaching day, when light mixes with darkness, and the light slowly erases it. Controversial, like every morning, only to be subdued. A partial victory. Before my eyes, behind the domed window of the round church. Sanctified Magdalene, Sinner, Adventurer, Saved, Loved and Suffering, Santa Magdalene. Pictures that I cannot perceive decorate the walls all around. I’m standing in the middle. To make me benches that will give a place. Give me space. Santa Magdalene, you have not given way before the violence. You were with him, with the man who belonged to your heart. I know so little about you, only that you were steadfast in your love, in your devotion. Who would dare to judge? To the last moment, staying.
And I see the pictures I cannot quite take, which I enrich with the pictures from my head, which tell a story, along the walls, a story that I follow by turning around my own axis. The first time, once, twice, then faster, ever faster, until the story turns into a movie, ever faster until even the running pictures become blurred, ever faster until everything blurs before my eyes, and I sink. The rose in my hand pierces its spines into my flesh. Blood dripping to the ground. Deep into the flesh. I do not feel it. Blood dripped onto my dress. I do not notice.
Skin on skin. Gently, you opened my hands, which had cramped around the stem of the rose. Touch on open wound. Healing touch. The wounds close under your touch. You take my hands, away from my chest and betray them next to my body. Lifeless. Deedless. Shipped. A cut from neck to navel. Unfolding my heart. Mute it beats. In your hand. Close the wound with your wound, which has been since mankind had split up, since you were torn from me. And your lips give me back the breath I lost, the breath of life, the presence, the moment.
Your touch heals my hands so that I can send them to you to receive you.
Your touch heals the incision through my breast so that my heart beats, to the beat that belongs to us.
Your touch heals my eyes so that I can see you and the world in you.
Your touch heals my lips so that I can give myself to you, so that the breath of life finds in us.
Your touch heals my ears so that I can hear what you say to me.
Your touch heals my soul so that it becomes whole, unfolds and flows.
How it is. How it should be.
And while my head rests on your shoulder, the light has spread in the room, illuminated, so that the images show themselves, as we are.
