MARTYR

written by: Danielle Nicole Burgess
directed by: JJ Castillo
starring: Danielle Nicole Burgess, Ayshia Collier, and Matt Rizzo
special thanks: Alyssa Price, George Anderson and the Austin Visual Arts Association, The Eastern, and The White Horse

My godly, acrid double—
Bone made of mirror,
she slits the wrists of the men,
she bleeds, bonded to me on the island.

I spent the summer fat-lipped and stupid,
meager as a kitchen knife.
Her appetite, incidental, fed blamelessly—
too much stale air, deficit of euphoria.

Now she doles out blue from her palm.
Now she flutters absolution like a crow,

Now she is rowing her small boat through midnight.
Now her fingernails burn like martyrs,

Now she is pouring salt over the blue of the wreckage.
Now she is courting eagerness on the insides of her thighs,

My double sees red, she carries me
on the silver backs of waves.
She rides like a queen,
with her head in the oven.
It is there the world crowns her,
smokeless, breast full of wickedness,
and from this wickedness her laurels sprout.

My double and I—
we tread water to the holy land,
we work hard at the indelible metal of our bodies,
we are in this together.

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