I need to tell my story aloud. And it will devour me again. Which means it must be released into a controlled space, broken down into predictable algorithms, laid out in zeros and ones, combed through wires, and then the lights should be turned off. As if we have nothing to fear.
I know that almost 35 years ago I nearly died. And to preserve what was left of the living, I hid it, shackled in a wrought-iron dungeon. And now I am terrified to take others as witnesses — I hide behind texts, in garages, behind complex metaphors; I filter streams, delete my social media profiles, cross out my desires. But without the testimony of others — those with enough courage and curiosity to look through the stained glass — I will never believe that something alive still remains behind this metal. They tell me that I exist — different, strange, serious and not so serious — but deep down, unable to accept that such a thing could have happened to me in this supposedly normal world, I freeze again inside my sarcophagus.
And now there is You. You, who will see in this strange, broken mirror — which slices through all my memory with its knives, dismantling everything present into soulless, and therefore safe, pixels and commands — my bizarre tree that grew on scorched ground, blooming with unseen flowers. And then, if you look closely, You might see your own tree and your own flowers. After all, even if shattered, it is still a mirror
