She may not haunt us like she haunted Woolf. Might not still linger with her perfect presence like a chilly breeze over our sweaty necks. But the memory of her, contorted to perfection. The shadow of her, still in the room. To kill her is to sacrifice. To cut something loose. To kill her takes a ritual.
Instructions:
1. Let a grain of sand enter the shell of an oyster. Wait for seven years, seven months and seven days. Watch as the pearl emerges from the shell. Put the pearl inside your mouth. Carry it gently under your tongue. The oyster is a living thing. It dies in your throat. On the way down. Before it reaches your intestines.
2. Bring out the torches. Light the candles, one by one. Let them burn. Dip your finger in ink, draw a circle on the floor. Let's gather for protection.
3. Watch the glass glow like magma, as it takes shape. Let it cool. Count the bubbles. Put it to your lips and drink.
4. Ask yourself, out loud: What are you chained to? What are these shackles? What is lost if you break them?
5. Cover your shoulders in your grandmother's sheets. Feel the bodies that slept in them. The skin that softened them, before you. Cover your hair. Pick up a knife.
6. Cut lines in your palm. Let it bleed. Kiss it. Taste the iron and the salt.
The struggle was severe. One might even say brutal. What is left is decay. Shatters of a glass that fell to the floor. Out of the ashes – a new kind of beauty. Out of death – life. Once we've killed the angel, what remains?
Misschiefs, 2022.