Ana Toader

OUT OF ORDER

 I used to be this. I used to hold the labrys, axe of double heads, metal butterfly.

As a teenager, I would watch Dali’s cover of Minotaure no. 8 for minutes on end. I had discovered horror and, as foreign to me as it was, I could not take my eyes off it. I wanted to breed inside people the same emotions that Minotaure had brought to bloom and burst in my heart. I wanted to be close enough to that hanging tongue to feel the heat of its secretion.

Due to this spell, I wrote my second poem with a heart, one that was not a mere exercise of image. I ordered a black velvet suit and dreamt of wearing corsets, so I could mirror a splinter of what Minotaure gave me, aesthetically speaking. I blended black powders on my lips, powders which sunk deep into the crevasses that wind had sculpted on my mouth. I liked that feeling, of the toxic powders mixing with my blood, marking me to the heart. I still keep the stained blood behind my breastbone, lapping against the diamond.

I composed myself as a horror with a waist. It took me ages and voices to understand that horrors terrify you, intrigue you and make you want to collect, but in the end they seduce no one.