#p. 198

[everyillumi]

[measureformeasure]

You took me, in that moment. I felt your pressure under my arms, my spine, lifting me out. Not taking flight but just being, in another way, I can’t describe, like you were the stardust I’m made of. Your fingers scraping the molecules that make me. And I felt for the first time that I was nothing, in the grand scheme, because you were the whole universe in one grip, one wing. How could I compete with any relevance? My helpless body that you could dissipate into carbon on a whim. But you didn’t, you moved me here, and left me unchanged in all but my perception of reality. It was cruel of you, cruel to show me the fabric of my own existence and then leave me to ponder it powerless. You wonder why I can’t sleep, Artemis, because I’m scared if I close my eyes I might break apart, become liquid, ether, nothing. Without you I can’t feel whole, I can’t be, you’re my glue, holding the bits and the dust together. Without you I feel my skin pulling away, my edges blurring, my voice cracking, my heart failing. Please take me back, take me into you, I’m only ever going to be an addendum of you, indebted, connected, a motherless child.

Wendy Haynes' writing quoted in Queer Euripides, "Iphigenia in Tauris—Iphigenia and Artemis? Reading Queer/Performing Queer"

[everyillumi]

[everyillumi]