"KANYE WEST'S ALBUMS APPEAR TO BE A NIETZSCHEAN JOURNEY"
your beating heart for last. Maybe then you will give back something in this world. And I know that this is not your fault. But I am entitled to anger, to rage. Though it was never shown to me. Only laid upon me. I have had to teach myself the ways of whetting my teeth against stones to enable my snarl; of hiding silver blades in lace and holding throats closed with my shining hair.
And I want to believe that you will learn. You said that you will. You said that you were as you grasped once again at a body that was never yours or anyone’s but mine. And so I cut off your hands. Will you learn before I have to take your arms too? I do not think so. So I am writing this for your own good.
You will never know the pressure of trying to grow up in a society that constantly pushes you back down. Or trying to be everything people want you to be when all those things are pushing you from all sides until you are compressed to nothing but a perfect, compact cube and even that isn’t good enough for them.
You will never know the fear of another body above yours –bigger, heavier. Of another person above your person –bigger heavier, with the weight of society behind them. The momentum of a lifetime of entitlement pushing them down on you until you can’t breathe. In. Or. Out.
I have been chewing the inside of my mouth for days now. Words unformed and endlessly sharp with energy carelessly cutting away at my throat, stomach, skull and tongue. But I am choosing to remain soft. Refusing to grow another layer of scar tissue. We cannot move forwards if we refuse to feel. This hurt will stop with me. So instead I will write this even though it will never contain all those words that I never learned the language for. Maybe I will send it to you. In spite of its insufficiency. Because I know that even with all the tongues in the world I could not express this adequately. I will never be able to give you my experience skewered on a knife for you to take into yourself wholly.
Maybe I will send this to you. But if I do, I do not want you to reply. Because you will never understand.
Photography by EMMA BLAKE MORSI
Modelled by MADDIE EAVES