When Eliana returned to the Phoenix Hotel Yogyakarta that night, she imagined that her grandfather's footsteps on the same floors, in the same hotel, after climbing the same mountain, would have ... [+]
Gabriel sits beside me and asks if the pain in my chest is worth losing god for.
He doesn't understand, that's ok.
I pull out a clump of feathers.
It's not about the pain at all, it's about what it makes.
He thinks for a moment, asks me this, now:
Why turn myself into a monster?
I do not answer, plucking white feather after white feather.
It hurts, but so is the action of uncovering.
I don't know if it's worth it, sometimes,
but I can't do anything else.
Bound to the unmaking, the remolding.
I can't do anything else.
I tell him:
All you see is the fruit rotting.
He says he does not understand.
The fruit fermenting, I clarify.
Not the jam, just the crushing.
Not the creation. Not the wine.
And to think,
Jesus only started with water.
He doesn't understand, that's ok.
I pull out a clump of feathers.
It's not about the pain at all, it's about what it makes.
He thinks for a moment, asks me this, now:
Why turn myself into a monster?
I do not answer, plucking white feather after white feather.
It hurts, but so is the action of uncovering.
I don't know if it's worth it, sometimes,
but I can't do anything else.
Bound to the unmaking, the remolding.
I can't do anything else.
I tell him:
All you see is the fruit rotting.
He says he does not understand.
The fruit fermenting, I clarify.
Not the jam, just the crushing.
Not the creation. Not the wine.
And to think,
Jesus only started with water.