A PATTERN MUST BE ESTABLISHED FOR VARIATION TO OCCUR
I want to do what my mother did. I want
to make a hole
in my life & watch it
widen. Desire complicates. I wanted
not to want so I grew myself
into a garden, dense canopy
from under which
I see him losing sight
of me. Will he still
love me when I'm
in plain view? Marina Abramovic
cut a hole into the seat of her chair
so she does not need to leave the arena
to pee. The artist is present longer
than other people. The show must go
on, but eventually it doesn't. Is love
a performance? I have, at times, failed
to reconcile my actions with my
reflection. I have cheated. No,
that does not make me
a cheater.
Marina Abramovic allows her
audience to act upon her with
any number of objects: feather,
olive oil, scalpel, honey, rose, scissors,
gun with single bullet. She remains
passive as strangers strip
her of clothes, drizzle
honey on her lips, tickle
her hips, hold a gun
to her head. Who would
surrender their life this way?
Yet we do it all the time. Let's
grow old together, one of us
says. He takes my nipple
in his lips. I take his
trust & wind it
tightly around mine. We keep walking
in circles. Because you're mine. Even when
you're not. I look up. I'm staring into
a different set of eyes. One of us
still glistering with belief.
Dylan is playing in the background, the same
song looping eight years of my
life. The ghost of electricity
howls in the bones of her face...
I was in love with X. X left, so I
cheated. I cheated, so X
left. Then there was Z. The whole time
I was with Z I had unresolved feelings
for X. I left Z to be with X. It took being with X again
to realize it was never about
X or Z, all these years, it wasn't love
tormenting me—it's the need
when someone slaps your
cheek—to turn the other. The compulsive desire
for symmetry, like the time I poured
a pot of boiling water
over my left arm, the pain so engulfing
I had to sleep with one arm dangling
off the bed into a bucket of ice water,
& all night I dreamed of setting fire
to the other.
Using twenty knives & two tape recorders, Marina Abramovic
grips a knife with one hand & rhythmically
jabs between the spread
fingers of the other. She plunges
the knife into flesh, picks up a new
knife & begins again, until she has cut
herself with each blade. She stops
the first tape. Sets up the second. Repeats
the performance, stabbing herself
again to the same rhythm & in
the same places as
before. Let's grow old together. What happens
is a merging. Past & present. Accident
& intention. Because you're mine. Even when
you're not. A recording of a performance
which relies on a recording
of a performance. A dual
rhythm. When the first tape finishes, she stops
the second, sets aside
the knives, rises to her feet. She leaves
without a word.
This poem was originally published by Bad Pony. Cover photograph by Darla Mottram.