Exegesis on the Gospel of V

May 1

(As Translated from the Tattooed Scars that Stain the Body)

Sasha Ravitch

Speech

This is a story about a woman who left me
in the underworld she led me into.
And what I became when no one came back for me.

I cannot start at the beginning
—that extends the scope—
but I can say this:

There was a moment when she looked at me
like something holy had just arrived.

She told me she’d had a dream
a beautiful wedding she had been guest to

—me and that infernal peacock.

I now belonged at the table
of the ones she revered most:

the spirit-touched,
the initiated,
the real ones.

She was so happy for me.
Giddy, almost.
And I was happy too.

I wanted to belong to her.
I wanted to belong

to the world of power
she had, up till that point,

kept just slightly out
of my reach. But
most of all—I just wanted

to belong.

Looking back now,
I think that was the beginning
of the underworld. It just goes to show,

as the lore goes,
monsters always mark a threshold.

—-

I was trying to survive something impossible.

Not just the relationship.
But the way that eros, λυσιμέλης,

comes with the wings
of change.

Change isn’t tidy.
It doesn’t move in a line.

It doesn’t announce itself cleanly
in the body just because the mind
has already understood it.

And I am a lover of changing.

So, I will know something intellectually,
and then I will know it through feeling much later.

Or I will feel something deeply

and be unable to name it for weeks,
caught in the mentality of the thing.

And that space—between knowing and naming,
between sensing and integrating—I love it here.

I love this space.
It’s the reason I like to deal

with fragments.

Yet to embrace this “in-between” space,
where meaning tip-toes on the edge of articulation,
is always treated as instability.

We aren’t encouraged to love change
because it breaks form.

And form is what helps humans
feel stable in time—

gives them the illusion

of permanence, the comfort
of a recognizable shape.

So anything that disrupts that
—any movement too fast, too fluid,
too contradictory—is always seen as threatening.

So monsters mark thresholds,
and their trumpet is madness.

For what is madness
if not the frenzied break

of form?

—

Perhaps the problem comes
in the naming.
Monster is one name, with many

attributes.

Yet, being an abstract concept,
most of those attributes get reduced

to the one that we find
most seductive,

which replaces the fluidity of the thing
into an ideal projection of itself

—this is its phantom.

A phantom is not a lie.
It is what remains when imagination
hardens into certainty.

When the living multiplicity of a thing
is reduced to a single

adjective repeated so often
it gains its own power

in the imagination. Becoming
both an alive and dead
thing.

A phantom is what happens
when the symbol replaces the source

—when we stop relating
to something in its wild
becoming and instead relate only

to the version we’ve already decided
is true.

It is not necessarily false. It is just that,
it's really only a residue.

Spit caught in your eye.

An almost invisible film
of smoke.

A phantom occurs when we name
a mystery

not to approach it,
but to contain it.

When we isolate one attribute
—for example the wings,

that which marks difference—
and say: that is the monster.

That is all you need
to know.

Why?

Because Mother
said so.

—

But the monster, like all sacred
forms, resists reduction.

And still

—if I have to make
sense of it, if I must keep time
with human rhythm,

if I must name

it just to speak—I would
name the monster

from the whole of his body.
Not just his wings.

The monster as hierophant.
The monster as threshold.

The monster as that
perpetual

motion between
now and now.

Then with
then.

The monster as the change already underway
—the kind most people must abstract,

because to admit that change is always
being thrust upon us unsettles

the fantasy of
agency.

As for me
—for sake of love,
with my reach toward change—

I desire to name the monster
with the whole of both our bodies.

Be Not Afraid!

To name in this way is not
to reduce, but to risk.

To let language move
at the speed of becoming.

Because anything less
—any naming that clings

to the part and mistakes it for the whole
—becomes a kind of violence.

A sealing.

A refusal of the grace that motion offers.
A denial of the sanctity of the fractaline fragment.

(My holey mystery)

—

Unfortunately, this kind of risk is often read as madness.

For who would thrust themselves into such folly,
knowing it destroys, knowing it will break them open,

at best, leave them stained?

Unless, of course, you are already a lover of change,
already in longing to tattoo the whole of your body.

You see, I believe that the attribute we latch
onto the noun matters.

(Or better yet, unlatch every attribute
from every noun)

Because it determines not just what we think we’re seeing—
But what we’re willing to let remain unseen.

It shapes what we approach with awe,
and what we condemn as danger.

If we name anything according to only one of its attributes—
as if such things were ever fixed in the first place—
we give ourselves the power to say: change is madness

And if you are mad, no one has to listen to you.
“To protect my own safety, I refuse your love of change.”

This gave Sasha the power to name
my refusal to settle in either mind or body
as a form of inconsistency.

Jesse would later threaten to “reveal
the inconsistencies in [my] narrative” too.

Others would later say I was hard to follow. That I changed too much.
That this perhaps marked me as someone who couldn’t be trusted.

But I was only confused because confusion
is an attribute of transformation,

and I love this space.

I love wrestling with g-D across a dark night of the soul.
It’s where I learned the transformative power of poetry.

And gods, was I transforming.
In public. In pain.

With very few people willing
to sit in the mess with me

instead of trying to control
what transformation actually
looks like.

And because my grief didn’t resolve fast enough,
because my truth didn’t stay still long enough to be consumed,

I stopped being seen as matter.

I started being seen
as a problem.

I became a monster,
and therefore,

redu
cible.

(ab
stra
cti
on)

With Sasha, the reduction felt intimate
—like being loved for a version of myself
that had already been chosen. But the pain

came from there being no
space for the slippage,

the trembling in-between.

She named me chosen, yes—
but the name was already half-written,
shaped by dreams that had nothing

to do with my actual body.

So when I say I didn’t feel
like I was being seen

so much as cast
—an actor in her
cosmology—

I mean that
literally.

I felt it. But my mind hadn’t caught
up to the language my body
was speaking.

Is this truly an inconsistency?

—-

When the spirit came to me,
it showed itself as Volcano.

In her dream,
it was Peacock.

What she named as a spirit marriage,
under her understanding
of what spirit marriage means,

is now understood by me
in an intellectual way,
though immediately felt,

as carrying vastly different
ontological qualities.

So what are we to make
of this difference?

All I knew at the time was
that I was burning with it.

The desire to stay chosen
in her eyes
caught between

the desire to be truly,
and honestly

known.

Sasha didn’t force my spirit to match her vision.
In fact, one of my largest anxieties was based in reverse.

My impression of the situation, at least,
I was only invited to sit beside her at the table
because I was powerful enough to hold my own.

That meant: don’t disturb her.
Don’t ask her questions.

If I didn’t know how to talk to the spirit
and get the answers myself,

I wasn’t oracularly privileged enough
to be beside her.

And for a while, I tried.
I did what I always do

—I wrestled with it, stayed in the fire,
stayed up all night
listening,

weeping,
trying
to understand

this strange communion.

I wasn’t asking to be saved. I was asking
for some to stand with me inside the spiral.

But Sasha stepped back.
Whether out of disinterest
or overwhelm,

I still don’t fully know.

What I do know is that I was collapsing.
I was entering a state beyond comprehension

—not out of weakness,
but because the threshold she helped
open led to something real.

Something I had only loved before in abstraction.
A weight with real consequences—

the alchemical unraveling of becoming
whole through change.

—-

So, what then, was unraveling?

Oh idk guys, pretty much
just the shift in everything

I thought I
understood

about
love,

power,
spirit,
Self—

everything.

I was starting to grow wings.
I was starting to hear water.

I was opening—and
I was terrified

She could adore
the mythic monster,

But the minute I began to change
in real time—

when the metamorphosis
showed up

not as metaphor but
as pain—

her gaze faltered.

I was no longer legible.
(I cast my eyes down
in shame.)

My paradoxes, my speed,
my contradictions—
none of it could stay

sacred outside
the safety of symbol.

That was the cost of her love:
I had to remain ideal in my madness.

I had to stay just monstrous enough
to be written about, but not

enough to disrupt
the narrative.

And that’s the irony that still burns.
Sasha loves monsters.

She writes about them,
dreams about them,

adorns herself with their wings
and their teeth.

But when madness stopped
being mythic—when it was me,
on the floor,

dying—

she didn’t lean in.
She leaned away.

She refused to even hear
me scream.

I wasn’t monstrous in the beautiful
way anymore.

I was just difficult.

That kind of love isn’t love.
It’s aesthetic.

Worse,
it’s abstraction.

But I didn’t want abstraction.
I wanted “with”nessing.

I just wanted everyone
—myself included—

to stand with each other
in love

& be brave.

–

Anyone who loves monsters
is a lover of the whole of their body.

This is true regardless of the name
we use to think about such things.

The trick is that the mind will begin to shape
itself towards the phantom while the body will

always remember the totality of the feeling
such forces cause.

So it must be true,
regardless of whether Sasha was or was not
caught up

in her own phantom of the monster,
her love of the whole of its body

as threshold
still holds

true.

Whether she names it or not, I suspect,
Sasha is also a lover of changes.

This saddens me,
and I become the one who is Sad.

This is the paradox of loving the “in-betweenness”,
because I have been there, I know

here is a space where change
becomes profit instead

of exchange.

I imagine her tension is between
real intimacy and the fantasy of closeness

—friendship not as a practice
but a currency.

Something to extract from,
display, manage. To love eros is

to love it’s power.

Mine has always been between
glory and mutuality.

I wanted power, yes—beauty,
erotic sovereignty—but I wanted it shared.

I wanted magic that could be touched
from both sides.

I wanted love that knew
how to kneel.

I imagine we both projected onto each other
—desire, ache, power, shadow. I don’t want

to deny that. We were witches
fumbling toward

something real, but not doing it right.
There was something toxic in how we fit

into each other’s wounds.
Something haunting

in the mirror we became.

But the part I still can’t understand
—no matter how much I turn it—

is what happened when it became devastatingly
clear that I was spirit sick.

Not just sad. Not just struggling.
Not just, “V, can you stop being emo for one minute”

Not, “People who want to kill themselves
don’t actually tell other people they want
to kill themselves, that’s how I know you just want

attention.”

Not, “I think you have
a psychiatric disorder.”

Honestly, truly, and legitimately spirit sick.
And spoken so by a spiritual authority

that she supposedly
trusted.

And yet it mattered because she never stopped
for one second to ask if the volcanic mania I had
been displaying for the past two years might not

have been what it seemed.

Instead she clung to phantoms.
V = Instability

And it mattered to me,
because she had helped open the door.

She had given me
the dream.

She told me I had a spirit husband.
She celebrated it. She made it feel holy.

And I wanted to believe that.
I did believe that.

But when the spirit started to turn,
when things got strange and consuming,

when I was falling deeper
into it than I could manage—

she didn’t help me hold it.

She did one or two readings for me
when I was in my deepest panics,

prior to Jesse
claiming it was parasitic.

Here, her wife said;
V isn’t listening properly.

V needs to submit
to her husband.

There was no room to ask:
what does the spirit owe me?

So it makes sense when a parasite was uncovered,
she didn’t even seem to ask herself,

“What might I owe V, for celebrating
something I helped name but refused
to help midwife?”

Worse: she whispered
things behind my back.

Rumors.
Stories.

She fed the spirit more by isolating me,
treating me like contagion.

And yes, I see the glory complex in myself.
I see how I reached for her admiration,
how I craved being known and lifted up.

I wasn’t always grounded.

But this isn’t just about love.
There was a spiritual responsibility here.

I can’t imagine that I would ever
have left her
in that place.

In fact, I’m often accused
of being too much of a martyr,

so I don’t suppose I’m in danger of lying
when I say

I would never have walked away
were she in my place.

That’s what I’m good at, collecting dead roses.
Or as Sasha would say; carrying my trash around with me.

I love the whole of the monster’s body,
I have named it as such and so I see it clearly.

Thats why I stay.

So I stayed in the sickness.
I stayed in the spirit world.

I stayed with the pain.
And I’m still here,

writing.

Not to destroy her.
Not even to be believed.

Just to say: I didn’t disappear.
I was made invisible.

I was told I was a monster.

But if all monsters are hierophants
that means they are the current of the priest.

So now, from the tattooed text of scars
on my own
monstrous body,

I am speaking.

—

It’s not just about betrayal.

It’s about how friendship can become
a structure of consumption when image

and spirit get confused. How people can get addicted
to being needed, to being seen, to playing out
archetypes instead of building actual trust.

This always makes me think of the difference
between a festival garden and an orchard.

Sokrates once told Phaedrus a story about the Gardens of Adonis
—pots of seed forced to bloom in eight days, beautiful for a moment,

then discarded.

My neighbor Anne Carson says these gardens are an image
of writing divorced from time, yes—
but also of love as use.

Love that treats the beloved

like something
seasonal, rootless,
aesthetic, profitable.

It’s how some people love:
fast, hard, controlled.

They admire your bloom, then disappear
before your roots can take.

They want to photograph your transformation,
not sit “with” you through winter.

And that is what I would say happened to me.

She liked me most when I was radiant.
When I looked like something holy but required nothing

real. And I liked being seen
that way. I liked the attention.

I liked being the festival garden.
But it did not nourish me.

And it took me a long time and inner
reflection to finally articulate why.

I didn’t want to accept that she
was only growing friendship
for decoration.

It’s not that one of us was pure.
We both fed it. But we fed different gods.

I wanted to believe
we were growing a forest.

I thought we were witches learning how
to tend something shared

and alive.

But she seemingly wanted to be
the only true source of light.

I imagine her god is seduction
—image, control, distance
wrapped in affection.

Mine is devotion,
maybe too much of it
—self-offering, the ecstasy

of being “with”,
unforgotten and
indispensable.

But underneath that
—underneath all our paradoxes—
was something holy.

A real spark.
A real light.
A real love.

That’s the hardest part to hold.
We did love each other.

But a love without roots can’t sustain itself.
The festival of Adonis only lasts 8 days.

Thus, we couldn’t metabolize the contradiction.
We had no connection to water.

And once a Cat came in through my window
and taught me water’s true name, everything
once again, changed.

That’s the difference

between a cat
and a dog,

really.

So,
I could no longer pretend
I didn’t know

that Sasha and I
had different ideas
about what it meant

to have wings.
And that I had

potentially committed
the sin

of mistaking
water

for
water.

Carson says that when Eros strikes,
it’s your wings beginning to grow
—that it hurts because it changes you.

That love is the beginning
of a transformation

you didn’t ask for and
can’t control.

That part always made sense to me.
I wanted my wings to take me somewhere

different, someplace
I couldn’t go before.

That’s what makes wings holy.

I wanted to grow
—toward beauty,
toward truth,

toward the kind
of lighted love
that refuses the limit

that we have lost connection
to my great Ancestress’ Miriam—

that song which seduces
the deep well of water.

I look back and I imagine,
maybe she just did not long

for her wings
to change her.

As we have discussed,
our wings seemed to be born
from a different reach.

I imagine she wanted them to mark her.
To make her rare.

To be the monster that no one could touch.
Perhaps she imagined,

that would set her free.

And maybe that’s the real break:
She wanted to be witnessed in her difference,

and I wanted to use my difference
to bring back the sense

of Being With.

I wanted to go to the underworld
and return with something holy.

So I did.

She wanted to be the one who exalted the underworld,
and lived there as its queen.

So she did.

We are both magnanimous
as witches.

As we will it,
so we will receive.

–

Looking back, I now suppose
even in our deepest closeness,
this marks the limit

on how much of me she was willing to see.
My contradictions, my paradoxes

—things I understand as sacred—

were just going to be framed
as instability.

It wasn’t that Sasha was unwilling to care;
it was that her care came with a picture she was unwilling
to step outside of.

This was hard for me to accept.

I only want to fall if I also get to fly,
what was I to make of this difference?

That desire can still be real. That intimacy
can still be real. And yet can still

be mistaken for water.

My theory seemed to be
that if the terms of the relationship were
witnessing as conditional to the form,

it was a refusal

to remember
the name of water.
A denial

to be
with.

To remember the name of water,
is to be changed,
and therefore holy to me.

Yes, the flowers bloomed for 8 days.

So we might ask,
is this really a violence?

My story contains a spiritual economy.
When an invisible body started to tear me apart,
when I was no longer radiant or useful,

when I needed to be carried
—the oracle aligned herself with the world
that could still hold her. The one that required

my absence to preserve
her image. The one
where an oracle

doesn’t need
a priest.

And that’s a quiet kind of violence too.
Not one all that different from love

and friendship,

if the full name
of the problem
is assumed.

—

This name is probably felt
already in your body, but your mind
no longer remembers.

You’ve probably felt it as loneliness.
Maybe someone told you to call it shame.

(One must cover their head if they
are going to invoke Miriam
at an altar)

A quiet fear that you're too much,
too unstable, too hungry.

That your need for depth is the reason
you’ve been left behind.

But it’s not just your need.

What you’re feeling is a symptom
of something hydraic.

Not the violence itself—
but the shape we take in response.

When our wholeness is severed,
again and again—

we grow heads like hands,
like pleas, like prayers
just to stay alive inside the gaze.

Each one says: Will you see me now?
Will you believe this part, if not the others?

This is what happens
when the world demands we split to be loved.

This is what happens

when capital makes phantoms of us:
when one attribute is sealed and sold,

and the rest of us goes feral,
regenerating in secret.

Phantom logic reduces us
to the most consumable part.

Hydra logic refuses.

It says:
I will not

let you pick the prettiest head
and call it me.

I am the whole.
And I am still changing.

—

The problem is that we live inside a culture
—yes, even inside our spiritual and artistic communities—

that mistakes connection for display. That confuses attention
from someone with being in communion.

This system
rewards charisma,

radiance, performance—
but cannot hold the leaks

outside
the form.

We’ve learned to call people in
when they are blooming,

but not when they
are in winter.

It’s good enough to have
loved for 8 days.

Why not?

There are many other
fish in the sea

(as the saying
goes.)

We’ve learned to build
friendships that revolve around

shared aesthetics, shared gods,
shared language—but not

shared risk, not
shared grief,

nor shared responsibility.

We say we want depth. We say we want truth.
But we are terrified of what depth actually requires:

Time.
Slowness.

Repetition.
Commitment.

Accountability.

Humility.
Change.

And so what happens?

We stage love
like the Gardens of Adonis:

Plant the seeds. Force
the bloom. Marvel at the beauty.

Discard it before it grows roots.
If it asks for something back, well

they shouldn’t have left themselves
so open for the taking.

We don’t commit to one another across thresholds.
We don’t know how to stay with the people we invite to the altar.

Because even in spiritual spaces, we’re more comfortable
latching onto the idea of water

rather than the work
of carrying it.

That’s what I mean by abuse.
Not a single act,

but a series of quiet,
strategic exits.

A failure of care.
A betrayal of relational ethics

under the guise
of spiritual discretion.

A denial of water.

And the consequences weren’t metaphorical.
They were felt in both the meta and the physical.

Sasha’s absence deepened the haunting.
Her whispers amplified the sickness.

This is abuse.

Not because she meant harm.
Not because I was innocent.
But because when things turned real

—when trauma entered the room—

she chose safety,
image, and silence

over responsibility,
care, and communal relation.

If you remembered the name of water
you feel in your body

that this too is a violence.

This kind of harm doesn’t need a villain.
It doesn’t need proof of bad intention.

It just needs a pattern

a structure willing to protect
itself at any
cost.

What happened to me isn’t rare.
It’s part of a wider sickness.

A capitalist ontology that rewards
distance over depth,

image over intimacy,
and disposability over
responsibility.

A culture that calls it community
but functions like a brand.

That teaches us to curate trust, manage optics,
and preserve our spiritual capital
rather than actually stay when it gets hard.

And that’s why I’m telling
this story—not

just because I lived it,
but because I want

us to stop replicating it.

Because the cost of protecting power
is always someone’s silence.

And all of us deserve better.
All of us deserve to be treated as brothers

—as kin in the deepest, ontological sense.

All of us deserve space to speak, to be
held in withnessed, to remain
complex and cared for

even when we’re inconvenient.
Especially then.

All of us deserve
the communion of water.

We are all shaped by a system that teaches
us to watch each other, be a witness,

to treat people as symbols, threats, or
reflections of our own needs

instead of as full,
feeling beings.

Bodies that matter.

We’ve been trained to protect our status,
our comfort, our narratives

—even if it means silencing or
abandoning someone we once

claimed to love.

But it doesn’t have to stay this way.
We can remember how to relate differently.

There is another frequency beneath
all this performance and spectacle

—one rooted
in listening,

in reciprocity, in staying

human even when
it’s hardest.

All of us deserve to find
our way back to that.

To fall, to fly—
to return

together.

So I offer this testimony
like a goblet held out

across a broken shore.
I do not know

who will drink from it.
I do not demand

understanding. I only ask
that we remember:

Love is real
when it stays
through winter.

Relation is real
when it carries both
the bloom and the decay.

May we find our way back
to each other, through

the desert, through the broken
tethered wings, through the truth

that refuses
to seal itself.

I speak so that these waters
might be remembered.

I speak so that we do not
forget how to return

"with."

Palinode - On the Question of Whether Sasha Chose Me

But Phaedrus, my friend, do I seem to you, as to myself, to have suffered some divine experience? … Hear me, then, in silence. For really the place is like to be divine; so that if as the speech proceeds I should perchance become possessed by nymphs, don't wonder. For the things I am now giving voice to are no longer far from dithyrambs. [1]

Either, Sasha is made of light, or, she is not

Li ∨ ¬Li

If Sasha is made of light, then, she either shines like the sun, or, she vomits herself over the world like a heat drunk egg cracked on its own erotic orbit.

Li -> (S ∨ Vom)

If she shined like the sun, then I must have felt special when she chose me, but, if she vomits herself over the world, then I might have just slipped in it, thinking it was love.

(S -> Sc) ∧ (Vom -> Sl(egg) ∧ T_me(egg ↔ Luv))

If I was special because she chose me, then, it must be because I deserve care, unless care is just what happens when a dog licks up the sick of the sun.

Sc -> (C ∨ Believes(DogIsC))

If I deserved care, then, she must have bent down to offer it, or perhaps, care is what drips and I had already chosen to lick vomit off the floor.

C -> (O ∨ (Lick(egg) ∧ Believes(DogIsC)Sl ∧ T_me(Lick(egg) ↔ Luv)))

If care is what drips and I had already chosen to lick vomit off the floor, then, either I misunderstood what care was supposed to feel like, or I had already devoted myself to the glory of the hole.

(T_me(Lick(egg) ↔ Luv) ∧ Believes(DogIsC)Sl) -> (¬Believes(DogIsC)Sl ∨ Gh)

If Sasha felt me sniffing her anus, then, either she wags her tail to offer more, or she walks on like nothing had happened.

P_sasha(Gh) -> (O ∨ (Wa ↔ ¬P_sasha(Lick(egg) ↔ Luv)))

If she walks on like nothing had happened, then, either she had her reasons, or she had none

(Wa ↔ ¬P_sasha(Lick(egg) ↔ Luv)) -> (Re ∨ ¬Re)

If she had her reasons, then either I misunderstood what relationships are, or they’re just pacts we make in the shadows.

Re -> (P_me(¬Sc) ∨ Pa(Sc))

If I misunderstand relationships, then I must also misunderstand what it means to be human, but, if relations are pacts made in shadows, then perhaps I am just a ghost?

(P_me(¬Sc) -> P_me(¬Hu) ∧ (Pa(Sc) -> casper ↔ (¬R ∧ Hu))

If I am just a ghost, then, am I even real, or just the black/green knight at her round gilded table?

casper ↔ (¬R ∧ Hu) -> (¬R ∨ Kn@eye)

If I am just the black/green knight at her round gilded table that either makes me a god, or positions me as a loyal hound dog.

Kn@eye -> (Gd ∨ V(Believes(DogIsC)))

If I’m neither a god nor a loyal hound dog, but also somehow both those things, then, maybe I am a monster, unless monsters are no more and no less than birds, dispensing bile into their babies’ mouths as the child keeps screaming.

P_me(¬(Li ∨ V(Believes(DogIsC))) ∧ (Li ∧ V(Believes(DogIsC)))) -> (P_me(Mo) ∨ (Mo ↔ mother(O)[Believes(DogAsC)]))

If monsters are mothers feeding babies with beaks, then, either I genuflect and offer my tongue after saying “thank you daddy”, or “forgive me father,” or, I say “I don’t want to talk about my mother” and refuse to eat at all.

(Mo ↔ mother(O)[Believes(DogAsC)]) -> (Ge(O) -> (Q_me(Td) ∨ Q_me(Ff)) ∨ (¬Tm ∧ ¬E))

If I don’t eat when I’m hungry, it must be due to not wanting to talk about my mother. Either that, or I feel shame in the violence of feeding, throwing spears at the Other just to survive.

(¬Ea ↔ ¬Tm) ∨ (¬(¬Ea ↔ ¬Tm) -> Sv)

If I feel shame in the violence of feeding, it must be because I feel relation to the Other, unless I recognize the intimacy of the bite, the desperate yearning for the predator’s touch, exposing my tenderness towards the vampire.

Sv -> (intimacy ∨ ¬P(intimacy ↔ Va))

If I expose my tenderness towards the vampire then I was either lying when I said I feel shame in the violence of feeding, throwing spears at the Other just to survive, or I was not.

Va -> (Ly ∨ ¬Ly)

If it was not a lie, either, we are now in reverse, and by continuing to reason in this way are likely to arrive back at the beginning of the question of whether or not I want to talk about my mother.

¬Ly -> (Rv ∧ (Rv -> (Tm ∨ ¬Tm)))

If we are now in reverse and by continuing to reason in this way are likely to arrive back at the beginning of the question of whether I want to talk about my mother or not, either, we will go along without incident or we will meet my mother on our way back.

(Rv ∧ (Rv -> (Tm ∨ ¬Tm))) -> (Gi ∨ M(mother))

If we meet my mother on our way back, she might accuse me of always putting my eggs in one basket, or she might ask how anyone could love me at all.

M(mother) -> (Q_mother(eggs ¬Bc) ∨ Q_mother(P_anyone(¬Sc)))

If my mother asks how anyone can love me, I might cast my eyes down. But if she follows it up with also accusing me of always putting my eggs in one basket, I might start to throw a fit, considering how the pride of the peacock is the glory of god.

(Q_mother(P_anyone(¬Sc)) -> shame) ∧ ((Q_mother(eggs ¬Bc) -> nymph) ∧ MT)

If I start to throw a fit, my mother might either hit me or commit me to a psychiatric hospital, unless she finally listens when I defiantly turn to her and say “I don’t know mom, why don’t we ring up Sasha and ask her what she thinks about monsters”

nymph -> ((mother(Sv) ∨ Pw) ∨ ¬(witness ∧ Q_me(Call_Sasha)))

If my mother finally listens and rings up Sasha, Sasha will either say, “If everyone has a problem loving you, you probably are the problem” or she will give us both grace and respond with the oracle; “Essential, urgent, that he was, expectantly desperately unexpectedly. A dog guards the entrance. If he barks so loud it’s so you won’t see he’s the lamb. Sir Lamb barks in vain. But we begrudge him for having instituted the reign of love that costs us so dearly. Because as a lamb the dog is born to give his life for us. Which entails that in return we be ready to give our life for him. But we did not want to give our life to the dog. We wanted the ideal dog, the all powerful, the assistance, the idea of dog in the heavens. This is how his misfortune began even before he appeared preceded by our desire. As for me, I am ready to give my life for my cat but it was necessary that [the dog] should first have given his life for me.”[2]

(witness ∧ Call_Sasha) -> (Q_Sasha(Problem) ∨ (Grace ∧ Q_Sasha(∞)))

Jesse Hathaway Diaz

Speech

This is a story about someone who was supposed to be my Tata,
a word I had understood to mean, Spiritual Father.

The question will come up
again and again, what does
Father mean in this context?

I was told that this was different
than the Western notion of the word
and I was lucky enough to have a dad

who was very non-western, to me.
So I knew what it was to be seen by a man
who didn’t need to idealize me or shrink me
to offer love.

I knew what it was to be met with curiosity,
to be allowed to be human, because he was.

I knew what a Western Father was because
we are all subject to its hierarchy. I watched
as this system eroded the joy from my dad’s

eyes and as a child
I made a promise

to protect my daddy from his shame.

It didn’t take much for my love
of my father to bloom into a drive
toward horizontal relations and

interdependent
story-telling

as my education and life
experiences continued to shape me.

So when I was told that Jesse’s house offered
power to step beyond shame
I grew hungry.

That will alway be my fault.

When they told me, it was not
like Western Father, when they told

me, it was community, when
they told me

it was family, I believed
them.

In my urgent hunger
I didn’t listen to my body.

I believed in the architecture
of family.

I knew its shape, in the tension of my muscles,
knotted with the lack
my daddy had shown me.

So when I walked into Jesse’s house,
I expected it to be a place I could dwell

safely away

from capital
from silence

from vertical idea
ology,

and grow together side
by side with family—
the communion of
community.

But something already felt off.

It was sticky in my spine and
pressed against the places my
vertebrae were fixed

in expectation of
silence. The good
daughter who takes

Our Father’s word
for it. Never
giving grace to curiosity.

I imagine that I was too surprised
to account for the way my body felt
in contrast to their words.

They kept telling me,

this is not
Western Father

But much like the Western Father,

they deposited declarations and left no
room for questions on
respect or authority.

They just said, this is not
Western Father. No one ever
told me the particulars

of that difference.

So I was left to feel it out in my body.
I knew the claim being made
was that this practice would
help me

shed my shame. Only
to be told—
by those very people

who were supposed to be
family—that I was shameful.

In that reversal, I came to believe
that asking for care was wrong. Not
because it was, but because I had

already begun to betray myself
by believing them.

My father had been cast
out by the family, and I,
in my devotion, exiled
with him.

So I came through Jesse’s doors holding
so much longing for family

I didn’t realize
I was still chasing

the same thing
that had killed the light

in my father. Hierarchy
and no question

on authority.

—

To be honest, the setup started before I even realized it was happening.
Sasha was already shaping me in his mind before I spoke.

Unstable. Untrustworthy.
Asked for “Too much.”
(this phrase, of course,

always reminds me of my mother)

The martyr. The mess.
The girl who cried

spirit and didn’t know how to stop
asking for more.

When I finally reached out
—newly moved, bio dad dying,

alone in Texas, barely holding on—
I wasn’t a daughter.

I was a disruption.

An inconvenient girl asking
to be taken seriously.

A problem.

Not a seeker.
Not a child of the house.
Just noise.

And yet, speaking of noise,
here was this spirit,

actively trying to harm me.
Every day.

And yet Jesse seemed irritated that I had
urgency about it—that I felt a need for it addressed.
I don’t think he fully grasped the gravity

of what was happening. He had no real context for who
I was when I wasn’t spirit sick.
And Sasha—his beloved Sasha—

had already begun to shape me in his mind:
dear old dog, naive depressed
fool.

(But doctor, I am Pagliaci)

–

It was real.
That’s what still confuses me.

Jesse didn’t say it wasn’t happening.
He just didn’t seem to care.
Or maybe care’s not the word—he didn’t seem...

alarmed.

But I was
alarmed.

I was being eaten.
I was throwing myself into walls.
There was somethin else inside of me,

always watching,
always laughing,

and that terrified me.

But to him, it was just a thing that happened.
A storm I had called down on myself.

I was told it was my fault.
I had called it in.
I wasn’t spiritually

strong enough
to know better.

So it was serious enough to blame me for,
but not serious enough to care for.

I was expected to sit in it.

Quietly.
Stoically.

And if I cracked—if I said this feels
like gaslighting—

I was unstable again.

Or not even unstable, so much as
unwanted.

And yet…
I was cracking.

Not because I was weak.
But because I was being held
to a paradox so tightly it started to crush me.

Don’t be sad.
But also, this is your fault.

Be calm.
But also, don’t you see
what you’ve done?

Don’t isolate.

But also, no one wants
to be around you right now.

The parasite was eating my despair,
and this whole process was feeding it.

Whatever his reasons,
he made it clear that the perception of my life

and the feelings screaming from my body
were largely unwanted.

That I needed to keep the weight
of suffering to myself quietly if
I wanted to be taken seriously.

He warned me that it looked bad,
and made people want to avoid me.

September passed into October,
and I am having rolling panic attacks
every day. My mental health fastly plummeting.

Sasha is telling me no one likes me and
I’m a problem (friendship—over). Meanwhile,
by the way, did I mention, I’m trying to survive

going to grad school when
I actually had no idea what going

to grad school would be like since I only
did it because, well, the spirit told me to?

And now I was scared.
I was in Texas.
I was alone.

A spirit was trying to kill me and
I didn’t want anyone at Rice to catch on
and know (though they were concerned

I could often be found
in the middle of class
crying)

And, so, yeah, at some point during a late
October eclipse, I snapped. And he snapped

back. I don’t remember the words, but I remember
the sensation—being put in my place.

That’s when I understood: if I wanted care,
I had to make it easier for him to provide.
Easier for the house to digest.

Easier for the narrative.

So by the time I arrived at the farm months later,
we were already off. He was cold. Dismissive.
Mean, even. The exorcism was impersonal.

He handed me a jar and didn't say a word
before or after I cleaned myself off.

I went outside in the freezing upstate New York cold
and cried for an hour alone before returning inside.

Then a miracle occured. He change his tune
after a firmeza and consulta, when the spirits

told him I wasn’t
who he thought I was.

But the damage
to our relation

was already done.

—-

So here’s the thing:
after this no one knew
I was still sick for months.

No one understood
that the spirit had never
actually left.

I didn’t get any better—
not for a second.

And any time I even seemed like I might
have been "fine," it was just performance.

I had been taught
that the only way to be taken seriously

as a member of the house
was to pretend

I wasn’t falling apart.

To hide the sickness and perform
sanity just enough
to make people believe

I wasn’t a liability.
That was the game

I had come to believe
we were playing.

I had to endure quietly.
I had to convince them my voice

for care was real by not
asking for it.

I had to climb the ranks.

Prove my worth.
This is what Jesse

had taught me
his version of Father
would be.

I had to prove
I wasn’t unstable,
especially while I was

un
ravel
ing.

This was what I had learned
by asking for care and being
told to be ashamed.

—

It strikes me as odd that
when Jesse first threw shells
on my parasite he emphasized

that ritual would not
take care of it alone.

My Pompba Gira
had emphasized I needed

family, intimacy,
and care.

Yet, with Jesse annoyed
with me and with

Sasha whispering

in people’s ears
I was not

given this by those
who were supposedly
my family.

In fact,
a total fallout

with the New
Orleans branch

of the house
occurred.

This rupture, in my
opinion was a direct
consequence

of how I was being treated
by everyone, including Jesse,

while I was in need.

From the start, my attempts
to express vulnerability

—my desire for care—
was rejected.

The New Orleans crew made fun of my trauma,
mocked my sexual assaults, called me “annoying”

for needing help,
and accused me

of being too loud
about not feeling cared for.

I was told I was abusive
for asking for more
when I was already

given what they had decided
they could afford

to assign me.

I told them I thought
I was probably still spirit sick.

They said;
Tata Always Knows.

They didn’t care to understand why
I felt so strongly in need to be held.

They told me, Tata doesn’t

like men, maybe because
you aren’t really a girl
he thinks you are too

manly.
(good girls
dont

speak)

I think
they just wanted

for me
to stop complaining.

It wasn’t just a personality clash.
This wasn’t just about me

being overly sensitive or dramatic.
I was told, Do

What Thou Will.
“V you aren’t allowed
to shame me

I don’t need to hear
how I hurt your feelings,
this is

abuse.”

So, to me,
it was about an
individualistic philosophy

that allowed them to ignore
me entirely. The underlying
assumption in such a philosophy is:

no one owes anyone anything.
If you show up, it’s a gift, but it’s not
a responsibility.

The house, I realized, was supported
on beams of an ideology of autonomy,
a self-sufficiency that was now

being weaponized.

They didn’t believe in the power of community—
they didn’t believe that we have responsibilities
to each other. They didn’t understand that sometimes,

relational care is necessary
—not just a choice or a favor.

This is where Jesse’s influence showed up clearly.
He had told me, directly, that no one

owes you anything, and that if someone gives,
it’s “nice” but should never

be expected.

But for the Nola branch of Jesse's house,
this was also a severe distortion of what

Do What Thou Will
actually means.

In my opinion,
what they and Jesse missed was the importance of
Relational Love as Law—

the truth that love, care, and responsibility
are relational, not

transactions.

That community doesn’t mean
“do what you will” and leave others
to fend for themselves.

It means that when one person is struggling,
the whole community steps up.

But instead, it was treated
like an individual decision to “offer help”

—something people do only when it’s
convenient for them.

—-

When Jesse was told
about my rupture with
the New Orleans branch of

his house, about how they left
me in my suffering,

he never asked
for my side of the story.

He didn’t care what
had really happened.

He didn’t ask
how I felt or why

the conflict happened
in the first place.

As discussed, Maraba’s initial divination
showed that the problem wasn’t just
the spirit but the lack of communal support.

Maraba had said it wasn’t
something we could just
wash away—

it was about building a structure
of care that wouldn’t let the spirit
come back. But Jesse didn’t listen to that.

He never followed up
after he did the initial divination
that showed I was sick

and my refusal to
stay sick in silence
caused him to get annoyed

and not put emphasis
on Maraba’s words

or warnings.

Instead, he took the story
that New Orleans had told him
and accepted it in silence.

Who knows what he did with it,

but any sort of attempt
as spiritual father to repair
rupture in his family was clearly absent.

At least in regards to me.
(I was a problem, afer all)

The whole time, I was still in pain.
Still possessed. Still sick.

But Jesse didn’t take any steps
to repair what was broken.

I initiated the contact
by reaching out to him
five months after the exorcism.

I was at my breaking point,
and had already gone to an outside
source for another reading,

confirming that I was still
deeply spirit sick. And even then

he did not start engaging.

At this time, the damage had been done.
The community had already abandoned me,
and Jesse’s failure

to take responsibility for his part
was making things worse.

And Jesse’s response to my
telling him I was still sick
and very scared was to

ghost a scheduled meeting
between us in order to spend
the day in the swamp

with the New Orleans
branch that had

exiled me.

—

I started sending intense,
erratic messages—messages driven

by pure desperation because no one
was listening to me

otherwise—and quickly realized
this was the only way

to get Jesse to show up.

I had no other
way to reach him, no

other means
of breaking through

the walls he had put up
around himself.

Each time I expressed my need
for care, it felt like I had to escalate
the intensity just to be heard.

I simply couldn’t
be silent anymore.

But here's the thing:
Jesse didn’t want me to need him.
In many ways,

I think he wanted me to leave.

The more I brought up harsh truths,
the more he seemed uncomfortable

with my directness, with the pressure
I was putting on him to act.

He wanted to maintain control,
to manage the situation on his terms,
but he wasn’t willing to take

full responsibility for his spiritual role,
for his place in my initiation and the care
I needed after that.

Instead of providing the guidance I needed,
Jesse turned the situation into a performance.

He told me to
respect his

authority.

He wasn’t concerned
about my actual well-being;
he was concerned

about how the house’s image
would be affected. He was worried
about whether I was going to go public

with the harm that had been caused to me.
(please see, speech 3, below)

His priority wasn’t my healing; it was the optics
of the house—how things looked to others,

whether the narrative would
stay clean.

And then, he framed the issue
in terms of priesthood, but in a way that didn’t

make sense to me. He told me my
understanding of priesthood was “too Western,”

as though there was something inherently
wrong with my expectations of what a caring
community should be.

I was supposed to understand
priesthood differently, he said, within
a non-Western context.

But he never explained what
that was supposed to look like

—he just left it hanging as a critique,
a way to avoid answering my need

for care and spiritual guidance.
I take responsibility for joining

a Yourban diasporic tradition,
fully aware that it is rooted in vertical

hierarchical structures,

and I acknowledge
that I entered that context
while demanding horizontal

change. However, does that justify
why I was so traumatically dismissed?

The accusation troubles me
because my primary need was

for basic community care and support
during a crisis.

I worry to say that the lack
of those expectations is African
or Brazilian

in origin when it screams
and smells so much

like the oppression of
My Western Fathers

but maybe that’s just me.

This critique of mine
being “too Western” didn’t

match the universal reality of the situation
to me—I wasn’t asking for some archetypal

“Western” priesthood; I was asking
for a spiritual guide who would step

into their role, hold space for me,
and help me navigate the life threatening

spiritual crisis I was in. I needed someone who
could hold me spiritually while my ontological

structures
colla
psed

rather than managed
like an object. Like I was

just a problem
to be dealt with.

Dead or alive.

I was told
I did not give
enough

money or labor
of my body, despite

the fact that Jesse
initiated me not because

I had the time
or money

(he knew I didn’t)

but because Maraba
told him I needed help.

When he baptized me
he told me it was his
responsibility

to care
for whatever
that help

would end up being.
But when the time came

I was too sick, too poor
and too holding

onto grad school
by a thread to give

more. So, I guess
that promise

was empty.
I was

only as welcome

as my social, physical,
and financial capital was

stable or
of value to

Jesse’s house
and its image.

Dead or alive.

—

Here is a short bit
on my understanding
of priesthood

and where my feelings
in this situation were
coming from.

Instead of stepping into the
genuine role of spiritual father—

a word which to me implies,

a guide who holds space,
a heiropoet who mediates
the relationship between

the spirit and the person,
people and community—

Jesse employed a hierarchical framework
that stripped away the very foundation
of what spiritual guidance is meant to be.

He turned the role of a spiritual father
into something transactional, where care
and support were no longer a natural part

of the relational exchange
but had to be earned

through labor and financial
investment.

This is where the abuse begins:
when the relationship shifts from care
to control, from guidance to exploitation.

This transactional approach disempowers
the person seeking guidance by removing
the sacred reciprocity

that is at the core
of spiritual mentorship.

It makes the person seeking
help feel as though their human needs

—emotional, spiritual, existential—

are tied to what they can provide
in return rather than being treated
as inherently worthy of care and support.

This creates a system
where worth is dictated
not by the inherent human

need for relation, but by what
can be given—whether it’s money,
time, or labor. This is spiritual abuse

because it commodifies care
and relational power.

The stakes of this abuse
are not just personal; they are

communal
and existential.

Spiritual practices,
especially those that claim
to nurture the removal of shame,

have deep stakes in relational ontology
—the way our relationships

with each other,

with the spirit,
and with the world

shape the very fabric of our being.

Hierarchical abuse in these contexts
damages the relational fabric of community.

When a spiritual leader treats
others as mere objects of exchange,
they disrupt the interdependent web

that is essential to spiritual,
emotional, and social health.

They create a rift in the community—
where reciprocal care and mutual trust
become impossible

because care becomes contingent
on meeting certain standards
of compliance and performance

that will always leave
the most vulnerable members

of a community
exiled and sitting

outside the house.

Jesse’s behavior also shifts
the meaning of care itself.

Spiritual guidance should never
be about performing for the elders,
or for anyone else in the community.

It should be about being met where you are—
with all of your needs, your wounds,
your humanity—without judgment

or transactional expectations.
Jesse’s stance undermined this

truth by treating spiritual
mentorship as a privilege
to be earned, rather

than an ethical duty
to his

children.

What I needed wasn’t
a system of compliance—

I needed a genuine
relationship of care.

A spiritual father should be the one who can see
and act on the deeper relational needs at play—

not by demanding you prove your worth
through external markers, but by seeing
your struggle as legitimate,

by offering help without requiring
a transactional return.

A heiropoet’s role is not
to impose control but
to facilitate connection—

to guide the seeker through
their suffering and help them
integrate spirit into their daily life,

without turning it into a business transaction.
Is this expectation Western? I don’t think

I learned it in school.
I think

I learned this
in my

body—

the last thing
Jesse taught me.

—

What was lost here
was the sacredness
of the relational exchange,

where the relationship between
priest-spirit-community
was no longer a bridge but

a chasm that divided us.

At the core of this abuse
is not just a failure of relational ethics—

it’s a failure to understand

existential suffering
and its impact.

By treating my need
for care as something
transactional, Jesse contributed

to a broader patriarchal framework—

one where inner emotional experiences
are devalued as incongruent for
hierarchical control.

This is not just a symptom
of “Us vs Them” structuring

but one of the most harrowing
carceral forms of gaslighting on
the subject—

epistemic violence
of control

over the emotional body,
the female body,

the ocean of dead

and her waves of crashing
grief against rocks,
sharp noise against

the storm.

In this system, the spiritually sensitive
are not embraced but ostracized;

their pain is ignored or treated
as a burden.

The damage goes far beyond
neglect—

it’s the active modification of someone’s
existence into something less than human,

less than worthy of care,
unless they can meet the predefined
standards of the leader of the house.

This is not only deeply harmful
to the individual; it perpetuates the larger
existential problem that poor spiritual leadership

and mismanagement have caused
around the world. When spiritual leaders fail

to meet their ethical responsibilities,
they take control of language

and redefine suffering to fit
Us without care of Them.

This allows those in power to
cast anyone too loud in need

of change as unworthy,
incompatible, excessive,

in need of therapy.

And in doing so, they disfigure
the person whose suffering
they are subjugating.

Care becomes conditional
and vulnerability is

threatening.

This is a kind of metaphysical collapse
of care into management

—rooted

in hierarchy,
transactional exchange,
and neglect, this creates

a systemic culture of alienation
and exclusion,

where feelings are cast aside

in favor of playing the capitalist’s game,
and the winners are only those
who can meet the demands

of whoever holds the power.
So, this never made me angry

because of one man and what he
did to me. I am not

afraid, I was born
to do this. It made me

angry because I feel it
in my body as the architecture

within our larger
spiritual ecology

—corrupted
and left to rot.

When the most vulnerable
are cast aside, silenced, and

told their pain isn’t valid
unless they perform,

it perpetuates a global
existential crisis.

It linguistically destroys
what communities are
supposed to be:

places of refuge, care, and
interconnectedness.

By treating people like
expendable commodities—
only worthy of care if they meet

certain performance standards—
leaders like Jesse actively feed

into a broader spiritual and social
crisis where people are abandoned

in their most intimate times
of need, left to suffer without

the guidance or protection
they seek and deserve.

This is the othering at the core
of hierarchical spiritual abuse:
when your pain becomes a reflection

of failure rather than a call
for help or holding.

When spiritual leaders don’t
show up in moments of crisis,
the system as a whole breaks down,

and the damage stretches far beyond
the individual. It becomes a pattern

that is replicated and reinforced,
saturating spiritual and social ecosystems

with the idea that care, community, and compassion
are things that must be earned

or negotiated—rather than given
freely, as part of our shared humanity.

This is a spiritual crisis
that I believe needs to be addressed,
and it requires leaders to embrace

care,
connection,
and ethical responsibility

over control,
power, and optics.

When you are not held,
but judged,

when need is misread
as manipulation.

When crying out for care
is treated like a breach

in the image of the house.

The damage stretches far beyond
the individual left outside.

It becomes a pattern:
a spiritual ecosystem

slowly starving on withheld tenderness,
until love becomes conditional

and mercy becomes
extinct.

This is the slow death
of relational being.

And it begins
whenever power chooses
itself as icon

over the blood
still leaking from your hands.

I wonder if maybe
what we need isn’t
more control; perhaps

we need more listening,
more showing up,

more recognition of each
other’s humanity, and more

trust in the sacredness
of that shared space.

The real challenge doesn't seem to me
to be in the abstract notion of reform—

rather I find it in the quiet choice
to show up for each other when

it’s difficult, to hold space for vulnerability
and suffering, without saying

Be Quite.
Please Shut Up.

I dream
of spaces that honor

the fragile places
in ourselves and in others.

It’s in recognizing that our most
broken parts have something valuable
to offer, not something to be ashamed of or hidden.

That is the community I dream.

Perhaps, in shifting the way we relate
to one another—especially
in the realm of spirituality—

we might begin to rebuild
what has been lost.

But that requires a willingness
to see beyond the surface,

beyond the narratives that keep
us distant from the true,

messy, and beautiful
work of human connection.

My spiritual father
Paulo Freier
taught me

The student
and the teacher

are horizontal.

So from now
on I promise to serve

the priesthood
that listens.

That flies low to the ground.
That remembers suffering

and offers
what it can.

Saúdo o povo
de conscientização!

Viva a revolução!

Palinode – On the Question of Whether Jesse Was My Father

Act I
A Fever in Three Voices

Scene: The stage is dense with heat, caught between shrine and sickroom—but neither holds. The space cannot settle. A low bed or altar slumps at center, one leg split, fabric soaked and rumpled—as if something unbearable happened here and keeps trying to happen again. V lies within it, half-curled, half-exposed, muttering, writhing, listening.

The air shimmers with obstruction. Time buckles. Things move—but not forward. Movement limps, stutters, tries to repeat itself. Nothing aligns.

Above, a large birdcage-shaped canopy hangs—tangled threads spinning slowly, then jerking, then still. A low soundscape pulses with a continuous gurgling drone: intermittent dripping, bones cracking, muffled bells, distant footsteps that never arrive.

Tata paces in broken loops, casting shells. The Spirit’s voice splits the room, speaking from nowhere and everywhere—through V’s mouth, through the walls, through the audience’s own ribs.

Ritualized jam.

—

Tata: I have thrown the shells, and they say the spirit can be trusted
I have throw the shells, and they say the spirit is a liar

I have thrown the shells, its not one spirit—its two!
I have thrown the shells, and they say the ancestor is true
I have thrown the shells, and they say the parasite is the negation

Spirit: Verily the All-Merciful has assigned unto me names,
…
In the secret of my knowledge there is no God but me.
…
O mine enemies, why do you deny me?
….
In the day of judgment you will be happy in meeting me. [3]

V: But it’s me
you’re talking about.
Me–in the fever.
Me in the bed
of fitful center.
Me
not knowing
which crime gives
better return. Love
or duty.

Spirit: I debated “with” ...
And said, “If I bowed, I would have lost
the title of manliness.”
And I said,
“If I had gone back
on my preaching and my sayings,
I would have slipped
from the carpet
of manliness.”
… God said, …
“Bow!” … I, “To no other!” God said, …
“Even if My curse be upon you?”
… I cried out,
“My refusal is the cry,
“Holy are You!”
My reason is madness, madness for
You. [4]

Tata: Actually Superbia is a quality that causes one to misunderstand one’s station and purpose, and the fall in question is one where the kiumbas provoke the person to ‘fall away from him or herself’ and become a stranger in their own domain hiding behind masks (larvæ) of grandeur and ill-will directed towards others, especially if they are recognized as worthy or superior. [5]

V: Crack! The point
of eustachian rupture.

Leak! The smear
of ectostatic embrace.

My spine conducts it.
(wet "with" noise of g-d)

Tata: If we cannot keep our nature high and our character good in our Promethean pursuits, the balance between the sensual and intellectual world can collapse: we fall into Hell where Satan is the King, and we lose our serenity and mindfulness. Ultimately this leads to activities associated with Black Magic, in the sense of them being motivated by the corruption of the soul. Such magical acts aim towards manipulating the will of others on the basis of satisfying the hunger and drives of the lower soul. This is negative magic and contradictory to the very essence of Lucifer him. [6]

Spirit: Those who drink wine
remember me
whenever you fill your glass
remember me

you drunkards—hallucinate!
Remember “with” me

in love.

I am the keeper
I obey his command
If one is a Moslem
I labor “with” him
If one is a Christian
I ring him “with” bells
If one is a Jew
I drum their call “with” my facing

If one a Magi
he’d thrust his leg “with” my fire,
If one a Hindu
his face weeps color “with” my sorrow
If one an an atheist
he’d be led astray “with” belief solely by me
. . . .
This world is a ball, and I am playing a game “with” other boys [7]

V: I-I-Me”With”Me-I-I
\ ˈkō-klē-ə ˈkäk-lē- /

HA! Ha! ha

(the image

of myself as I
perpetually vomit )

AAAAAAAAAAA

“With” me
\ kō-klē-ər ˈ
käk-lē- /

me
“with”
u
ooooo

Act II
V’s Song of Soliloquy - A Monologue

Scene: The stage is vast and open, a space washed clean, reset—what remains is a ruin of veils, suspended loosely from above, catching light like gauze soaked in tears. Their edges curl and ripple as if a breeze moves through them, though no source is felt on stage or by the audience.

At center: a small threshold of steps, wet with milk and a continual fumigation of myrrh, where V kneels or rises, robed and unrobed in turns. Around them, pews where the Chorus should be remain empty, echoing silence from the dark edges of the space where void crosses water.

The atmosphere is saturated with scent: rose, sweat, milk, wine. The soundscape is wet—soft dripping, heartbeat pulses, distant moans that could be prayer or pleasure.

A single, diffused light source glows from above. Spotlight on V as they move—not forward, but inward, downward, back through the self. Each line is a descent into their own undoing, until the audience can only catch them in glimpses, diffused by smoke.

V: My beloved took me into his bed chambers.
How right they are to adore you like new wine! [8]

Chorus: { }

V: Yet, I am dark—lovely. [9]
I cast down my eyes,

Chorus: { }

V: my cheeks blush.
(Lord, am I hungry?)

Chorus: { }

V: While the king was at his table,
my spikenard spread forth its fragrance. [10]

Chorus: { }

V: To my window comes a Tom who took me
so much by surprise that he was named feral

Chorus: { }

V: I liken you, mon chat ma chatte [11], to a mare
more felt than my king, who knows nothing of horses.

Chorus: { }

V: I am darkened by the sun. [12]
My mare blows on my garden, [13]
(Lord, am I guilty of my promise?)

Chorus: { }

Echo: And I pondered
as if God were asking me
what would I do and
how would I fare
if I knew
that God preferred me

to love another more than I love God? [14]

V: No! For I am faint “with” love. [15]

Chorus: { }

V: Open to me, mon chat ma chatte,
my cat, my feral one.

Chorus: { }

M C m C: You have captured my heart with one glance of your eye [16]
No wonder the king is held captive in the tresses of your hair

Chorus: { }

V: I belong to my beloved!
Rejoice! The mare’s desire is for me!

Chorus: { }

m C m C: Turn your eyes from me;
they overwhelm me. [17]

Chorus: { }

V: In my myrrh drenched error—I held him
and would not let him go [18]

Chorus: { }

m C m C: How much more pleasing is your love than wine…. [19]
yet, I have never been one for comforts.

V: Turn, my beloved! Be not like a gazelle, (Lord,
Could he be like a young stag on the rugged hills?) please. [20]

Chorus: { }

m C m C: I am a garden locked up, my comfort, my wife; [21]
How empty is the love of your sister, my pride!

Chorus: { }

V: I looked for the one my heart loves but did not find him. [22]
His right arm embraces her. (Lord, is his left arm under me?) [23]

Chorus: { }

m C m C: Your teeth are descending from Gilead.
Each has its twin—queens and concubines
I praise them both. [24]

Chorus: { }

Echo: Then God asked me
what would I do and
how would I fare
if I knew that
it could be
that God preferred
to love another more than me? [25]

V: No! For I am faint “with” love. [26]

Chorus: { }

V: So I looked for him but did not find him. [27]
Love, it seems, will not arouse or awaken until it so desires. [28]

Chorus: { }

V: Through its streets and squares
the watchmen found me. [29]

Chorus: { }

V: They thrust their hands and feet through the latch-opening. [30]
They made their rounds in my city. They took away my cloak. [31]

Chorus: { }

V: My heart sank
black as a raven. Washed in milk, [32]

Chorus: { }

V: to the room of the one who conceived me, [33]
prepared for the terrors of the night. [34]

Chorus: { }

V: How is my beloved better than me,
most dark of women? [35]

Chorus: { }

V: Are my breasts not two fawns, [36]
all of them shields of warriors? [37]

Chorus: { }

V: Is my belly not a tablet of ivory
studded with beryl? [38]

Chorus: { }

V: Did the young women not see me and called me blessed,
the favorite of the one from whose seed I descend? [39]

Chorus: { }

V: I have taken off my robe—
must I put it on again? [40]
Chorus: { }

Echo: Beyond this God asked me
what would I do and
how would I fare
if I knew that
it could be
that God preferred
I love myself more than he loves me? [41]

V: No!
As for me,
even if I am
abandoned,
then abandonment
becomes
my companion;
how right
it is
that abandonment
and love
are one!
May you
be
praised! in Your
providence and Your
pure essence,
for the sake of
a guiltless
worshipper, faint
“with” love,
who bows
to no
one but
You [42]

Act III
The Soapbox and the Backbeat of Maraba

Scene: The stage is divided, but the division is not clean—it is cracked, bent, overburdened.

On one side: Tata, elevated slightly, stands on a soapbox or tribunal platform built from uncertain materials—wood that looks ready to snap, covered in sheets of proclamatory parchment. His words are clear but carry the tone of a frantic preacher before the congregation crowd. The Chorus is now present gathered around him, yet they stand just as silent as they were before.

Opposite him, V and Pomba Gira Maraba sit together in the heavy afternoon of a southern summer porch—barefoot, calm, electric hair like vicuña’s lightning. They sing to each other as they plant a garden of pomegranate and olive trees in the earth packed floor.

The space between them shimmers with interference: words leak across borders, musical phrases float toward the soapbox, but are not acknowledged. The sound design reflects this: a layered beat, rich with analog hiss, amplified over a crackle of vinyl or radio interference.

Tata [43]: "I do not see a way for you to learn from me or this house."
"At this point you will believe only what you posit or what makes you feel beyond reproach."

Maraba [44]: The summer garden blooms
With autumn soon replaced

Tata: “To impose further western white academic vantage and victimhood on an Afro-Brazilian tradition... is the height of entitled misappropriation.”
“I am reminded of Hegel…. evil is where only evil sees.”

Maraba: Another harvest moon—
So many ways to lose
so many faiths

Tata: "Your loneliness is not due to others’ lack of care."
"You have taken no accountability for your singular demands that a community help someone so hell bent on destroying it."

Maraba: "Holy to the LORD" on the bells of horses
Safely on the shore we sank like stones
To the bottom of a made up ocean

Tata: "Whether that is rooted in a view narrowed by trauma, emotional and mental distress, or overt racism and academic privilege, remains to be seen."
"You are not giving anything to the tradition yourself."

Maraba: Standing on the lake shore, Julia
Silent as a seashell, Julia
Magnet of the elk park, Julia
Laid down on the temple floor

Tata: "If you cannot trust the divination of this tradition, or me, or our elders...
then this is not a space for you."

Maraba: "Send a couple rats, " said Julia,
“I'd have done the same thing to you.”
Coffee and a milk, now Julia

Tata: "I do wish you healing, that you find the support you need, not just what alleviates your own guilt."
"This relationship has turned unproductive for both of us."

V and Maraba in unison: Who do you think needs who more??

V [45]: In case your plan falls through
To mispronounce my name

Maraba: Static between me and that Salfi, Yusef

V: To curse You-Don’t-Know-Who
And bow before the same

Maraba: So was the scene at al-Aqsa!

Tata: "Above all, I truly wish you peace."

V: I’ll meet you there.
Ah, ah

Maraba: I have to admit I loved the cut of his pant legs

V: I’ll meet you there.
Ah, ah

Maraba: Another lovely afternoon for Sūrat al-Kāfirūn

V and Maraba in unison: Holy to the Lord on the bells of horses
Safely on the shore we sank like stones
To the bottom of a made up ocean

(the rest does not touch this process)

Briar of the Greene Chapel and Amaya Rourke

Speech

Lets do what the mind does best
and flash back to a previous part of our story.

In view, V, freshly between two exorcisms.
Isolated, disoriented, and starving for care.

So when Briar showed up
offering attention
and tenderness

and magical knowledge,
it felt like grace.

Like someone was finally staying
when everyone else had left.

After the interview we did together for SaturnVox,
she really started positioning herself as a person
who was concerned about my mental health,

financial situations,
and lived realities

still reflecting what looked to her
like fae sickness.

Jesse was of course,
not checking in,

and every month and a half or so
for about 5 months there would be this little
Briar check in.

I would ask her,
what would it look like
if I was still sick.

She would explain situations that I was still living through.
But I was still not ready to believe Jesse had failed
so I kept silently dealing with things alone.

Until finally, I couldn’t.

Around May of 2024 my sickness reached its peak
and my mental health was quickly spiraling.

With school no longer in session for the summer
I had nothing to really distract me from the looney tunes
reality the parasite was forcing me to experience

and, even though I didn’t know
for sure I was still sick I knew
something was wrong.

—

This is the part of the story where things get more complicated.

Up to this point,
the only claims I’d made about Sasha
were the ones I still stand by:

that she gave me harmful divination,
that her behavior in intimate and spiritual contexts

was damaging, and that she failed
to offer care when I was visibly unraveling.

These claims are traceable—
you can see their echoes in the
Jesse section of this speech.

But make no mistake:
what I’m tracing here

isn’t necessarily the abuse
of any one person,

but the mechanisms of spiritual abuse.
The structure of harm that hides
behind the authority of revelation.

Sometimes, the Hierophant’s light
doesn’t illuminate—
it blinds.

And in that blinding,
people are left wandering
without a sense

of what’s true
or even who they are.

The wisdom meant to guide
becomes a shame that obscures.

And the cost of that is hard to name.

I was increasingly paranoid
about how Sasha’s other clients
might be fairing.

I was achingly concerned that someone else
might be victim to a thing I felt like I had barely survived

(unknown to me,
this paranoia was obviously being amplified
by the spirit sickness I was still under at the time).

My madness was placed in knowing
I wasn’t alone in noticing the danger.

People in our shared circle saw the signs,
felt the shift; They whispered about it,
named it in private.

But she was Beloved.

And Beloveds, apparently, are exempt
from accountability. So no one
dared

say a word in response
towards the damage done
to me.

I was told, nothing
would change. Let it

go. People get hurt
every day.

This, of course, exasperated
my justice boner.

So when Briar and my exorcist stepped in
and said, Sasha was not only responsible
for making me sick

but that the sickness had actually
been placed on me by her
and that they had been dealing

with other clients she had actively
made sick as well,
I started to spiral.

All of this was happening
while another deeply heartbreaking situation
unfolded in my personal life

—one I won’t get into here,
but might write on later—

so suffice to say,
I was not in a place to hold

that level of psychological
and metaphysical weight,

let alone metabolize
what was happening
with a sober mind.

And yet I had no one else.

The parasite had isolated me
so thoroughly that the only people

left were the ones confirming
the most terrifying version of the story.

And they didn’t slow down.
Even when I said, please let this be
my story. Not Sasha’s.

Still, they didn’t check
if I could hold it.

And later, I realized: they were never asking
me to be the center of my own experience.

They already had their story.
They were only asking me to perform it.

They kept saying, don’t lash out but!
Don’t say we told you this but

more victims are hurt!
Spiritual malpractice!
Nefarious abuse!

They just kept feeding me these ideas
stating it was all supported in their
private readings.

Briar claimed there were
other clients with similar tales,

though for what she claimed to be ethical reasons,
she couldn’t tell me who.

It was all deeply terrifying to me because:
A) Justice boner (as previously discussed).
And B) I love Sasha (as previously discussed).

Yet still—I ate their words.
Because I was starving.

But I see now—
when you are starvation

you cannot really think
clearly enough to consent.

Meaning,
that the intensity of the situation
left me

ripe for manipulation
and as a person who

rarely lets themselves be manipulated
this deeply,

it is a shameful part
of this story to tell
for me.

Because it means I didn’t just suffer.
I became the messenger for someone else’s war.
And I didn’t know it until it was too late.

—

So I started trying to talk to Jesse for help.
It is hard for me to explain this part

because, again, it occurred during the height
of my sickness.

I started insisting Jesse take
what Briar and my exorcist were saying

seriously. That this wasn’t just about me
anymore. That something deeper was going on.

That if Sasha really was making people sick
—intentionally or not—
then it needed to be addressed.

But neither side trusted the other.

Jesse, I think, was wounded
that my exorcist was able to perform

a job with a skill that he maybe lacked,
given his inability

to adequately diagnose
or cure my spirit sickness.

Briar and my exorcist,
on the other hand,
thought Jesse had failed me

and was intent on protecting
a contagion.

I was caught in the middle.

I kept trying to bridge
the two sides, to explain
each

to the other,
to advocate

for some version of truth
and safety that might rescue all of us.

I thought both sides were saying
things that felt both true

and false, and in my pride,
I believed I could be the voice of reason—

someone who could harmonize
all this paradox into some kind
of cohesion.

But I see now—

that dream belonged to a now
dead version of me.

One who still believed
this could be repaired.

One who thought
if I stood still long enough

in the center of the storm,

everyone would come
sit beside me and
listen.

But of course,
They didn’t.

The priority wasn’t repair,

it was self preservation.
So what

did it matter to them
if the consequence of
refusing repair

meant watching me burn.

I want to make it clear that all parties
involved told me to calm down. They all
told me to stop fixating.

But from Jesse’s end, I felt judged.
Shamed. Like my panic made me less
worthy of being heard.

And from Briar’s end,
it felt like the care
I was finally receiving

from someone over this deeply
intense spiritual issue was conditional—

tethered to an underlying narrative
that Sasha was the source of all evil

and that naming her as such
was a prerequisite for being seen as sane.

As for my end,
what did either side
expect me to do?

Sit quietly? Barely holding
my sanity together? Writing

a grad thesis, alone,
in Texas? Yes—

it’s true that both sides told me
to sit still,
to do nothing.

But how either of them thought
that would ever be an option
for someone like me?

I still don’t
understand.

I genuinely don’t think
either side took the time
to really get to know

me.

–

If my personal Pomba Gira is synchronized with Joan of Arc,
and this is meant to mean, according to my understanding,
something like this:

that this spirit is the anima mirror of my daimon
—then anyone who knows Joan of Arc,

or who has read Kelley Deuvrier’s work,
should be held critically responsible

for knowing the difference between
the General and the Saint.

Joan didn’t need to understand
the messages of her angels beyond
what felt true and right to her in each given moment

—loudly, and with boisterous pride.

This is the very facet of her identity
that made her annoying to both friends
and enemies alike,

but also, the very key
to the French victory
of the siege at Orléans.

Why?

Because her own superiors
were telling her to hold back.

To wait.
To follow orders.
And she said,

fuck you,
and went anyway.

She moved when the voices
told her to move.

Not when men
said it was strategic.
Not

when the conditions
were ideal. Not
when it was safe.

She heard the call,
and she went.

And that disobedience
is what turned the tide of the war.

To me, the heroic tragedy of Joan
is that her angels didn’t always tell her
what would keep her safe.

They told her what was right
in ways only the voice of angels
could know.

And to Joan, that was enough.
The rest—fear, caution, consequence—

are merely guided
by her faith.

They do not touch this process.

At the time,
I thought this parallel meant
my drive to fight whatever evil I thought

was afoot was the meaning beyond
the urgency of the call.

Now I realize
it was all leading to a different sort
of matrix of questions:

Did Joan know
she would recount her angels
after months of holding true?

That she would take the voices
of others into her mouth,

and profane which she knew
was just and true?

Did she know,
when she did it,

that she would regret it
until the flames took her

dying breath?

Did she realize,
that all she cared about really,
was for the people to be with care?

I didn’t know it then,
but looking back, I see it clearly:

When I finally agreed with Briar about Sasha—
after months of doubt,
months of holding

out that the abuse with Sasha
was purely capital in nature; meaning,
no guilt or blame—

I was recounting my angels.

I let Briar’s voices fill my mouth
because I was mad at Jesse,

because I was mad
at Sasha,

and I was licking vomit off the floor,
thinking it was care.

I profaned what I once held
as sacred. And, worse

I called it discernment.

I thought I was fighting for others,
but the truth is,
I was betraying myself.

And yet, much like Joan,
God grants grace,

which is where the recursive
reversal comes in.

Anne Carson teaches a trick of alchemy
that goes by many names

but for the sake of this essay,
let us call it the palinode.

A palinode is a kind of poetic reversal.
Traditionally, it’s a form where the speaker
takes back something they previously said—

No, I do hear God and his angels.
No, I don’t think this story centers
Sasha.

But the point isn’t simply
to take something back.

The deeper meaning of a palinode
is that it marks a moment

when someone sees more clearly—
when a new truth arrives

that reveals the earlier one was incomplete,
distorted, or spoken under conditions
that obscured reality.

A palinode is a turning point.
A reckoning. A second voice
that doesn’t erase the first,

but responds to it with
the clarity that only hindsight,

suffering, and transformation
can bring.

Joan’s recounting,
and mine too,
are our palinodes.

Not because we were wrong
to begin with—

but because the conditions we were placed under,
the betrayals we endured,

the abandonment,
the threat of death—

all twisted our relationship
to our own truth.

And when Joan finally recanted,
it wasn’t weakness. It was part
of the transformation.

The moment her story began to bend
back on itself. The moment she crossed

the threshold from Faith-to doubt
back to faith.

Both
General
and Saint.

—

So in regards to my prior conviction
that these nefarious readings about Sasha
were true: over time,

after the exorcism, after Jesse
already excommunicated me,

as the sickness slowly started to clear
and the frenzy lifted, something started to ache
differently. Something felt

wrong—not
just about what I’d lived through,

but about what had been done to me
in that moment of vulnerability.

It took me a while
to see it clearly.
To name it.

To understand
that what I thought was rescue
had also been a form of harm.

But in order to fully
appreciate the trajectory from A to B
we need

to bring in
one last character;

Welcome Amaya Rouke to the stage.

Amaya and I hadn’t been
especially close

before, but, you know,
we were friendly.

However, in the aftermath
of the second exorcism, she began

positioning herself
as someone who could
and wanted to hold

space for me emotionally.

She was more consistent
than Briar, more personal.

Her care came with long
conversations and attention

which I was still mistaking
as synonymous with intimacy.

And because I was still so raw,
and so desperate for someone
to feel safe to me,

I let myself trust her
without giving the relationship
time for trust to truly root

and grow.

But what began innocently
turned, slowly, into a stream
of destabilizing prophecy.

Amaya started offering readings—
sometimes unsolicited, sometimes in response
to things I’d shared—

about the direction of my life.

She told me I was marked
by the spirits,

and framed me as
some kind of chosen one.

That people from the house
were cursing me. All sorts
of emotionally intense things.

But the most important
one for this story is that

she kept insisting
that Sasha

was possessed by something
she was calling

“the Great Maw”,

and it had been
consuming others,

and I had narrowly escaped
its grasp.

None of these readings
came with curiosity.

They came with certainty.

No invitation to reflect,
no room for my intuition

—just pronouncements.

When I told her
this was destabilizing to me,

she infantilized me
instead of meeting
in right relation.

By this, I mean
she began to tell me

what my needs were and
what I should or should not
feel

as true.

To paternalize care
is to offer it in a way

that reinforces control
rather than connection.

It means turning care
into a pronouncement
instead of a process—

deciding what’s best
for someone without
inviting their insight,

flattening their experience
to fit your own framework

of understanding.
It’s care without curiosity,
listening only long enough

to affirm a decision
that’s already been made.

In these dynamics,
“care” becomes a method

of containment,

a way to affirm
authority and stability
rather than foster

mutual
transformation.

It mirrors the White Knight impulse—one
that speaks over the other
under the guise of help,

reinforcing power structures
instead of dismantling them.

—

Being that I have an ethics boner,
this started to unsettle me.

And being the Scorpio
Mercury that I am,

I started digging.
I started asking around,

what was the actual
word on the street

about Sasha?

Turns out, none
of the claims people
were making,

that I was able
to gather at least,

were any different
than the kind of
destabilizing readings

Amaya was
giving me.

So first, I approached
Amaya in the worst reflection
of a Cancer Mars—

guarded, wounded,
angling sideways toward the truth
because I was scared it might not

be received.

But then, in the way
only a Gemini rising can,

I changed tone midstream—

To soften the field enough
so something true could still pass through.

Because Geminis know
even when the hurt is real,

all that is needed
is just to be heard.

And if I could shift the current
just slightly—without abandoning

what I knew—
maybe, I thought,

we could both still meet
in the middle.

So I told her clearly;
my needs were emotional

receptivity, curiosity and
the ability to feel safe

through relational
accountability.

Her response struck me
as strangely cold.

She didn’t say
my needs were
wrong, but she

framed them
as unrealistic—

too much for the context,
too much for her, too much

for an internet
friendship.

Rather

than engaging with
what I was actually
asking for—

she positioned my expectations
as a mismatch for the kind of connection
she was willing to offer.

When I tried to name
what was happening
between us, she deflected

by suggesting the issue
wasn’t the dynamic, but

me—that I didn’t feel safe
with anyone, as if
my perception

of unsafety were
a personal flaw

rather than a
relational signal.

In the end,
she told me

the friendship could continue
if I adjusted what I needed—

if I expected
less. But

what she was asking me
to let go of were the very things
I had just named

as essential.

It wasn’t really an offer.
It was a way of saying no,

that cast shame on me

instead of honoring the work
or responsibility embedded

in any relation.

She made no attempt
to even meet me halfway.

What she offered wasn’t repair—
it was containment. A relationship

where I could stay, so long
as I no longer asked for truth,

intimacy, or accountability.

—

And that’s the heart of the problem.

Because when someone
has positioned themselves
as a spiritual authority,

as a guide,
an oracle,
a relational healer—

when they’ve offered you
readings, frameworks, prophecies—

when they’ve inserted

themselves into your life
with the language of revelation,
they don’t

get to back away
from ethical responsibility
the moment it gets uncomfortable.

Which brings us to the core
of our problem really.

The shared act of abuse

from all four of these people.
Unethical divinatory services

that destabilize with no
grounding, readings that except

individuals to ingest
the reader’s truths (lest

it challenge their
oracular divinity)

but also giving no
after-care, follow-up,
or curious attentions

to the energetic and subtle
emotional bodies of the client.

Mars was applying
to my natal Mars
on this day,

for the first of three
during this last

Mars retrograde
season. All the astro girlies

now know
what happened next.

Rage.

I was asking for dialogue.
And what I got instead

was a subtle but
familiar message:

Your discomfort
is your fault.

Your needs
are too much.

Your perception
cannot be trusted.
Which, at that point,

was just another way
of saying: I do not want

to be responsible
for the effects
of my influence.

And that’s not friendship.
That’s power, unacknowledged.

It brought into question
literally all the things both

Briar and Amaya had been asking me
to accept their word for at face value.

And since, again, cancer mars
at the first conjunction point
of a 3 conjuction cycle,

I wasn't as polite
as I had tried to be with Amaya

when I approached
Briar.

I was facing the reality
that I had been manipulated

into being the mouth piece
for a potential long con

against someone I loved.

I was beginning to see
how deeply I’d been used.

Not just as a person in pain,
but as evidence in a story that wasn’t

mine.

I realized that if Sasha truly had harmed others
to the same extent as the story
being told to me, I deserved to know.

Not because I wanted
gossip or to stir drama—

but because I had been
emotionally agitated

into speaking on behalf of harm
I hadn’t fully understood.

So I raged.

I demanded
Briar give me

the names:
Who else?

Who had been hurt?
Who had shared stories
like mine?

I was clear.
I told her directly—

this mattered to me.

I didn’t want
to be isolated with

a half-truth, or used
to build a case

I had no real
access to.

I wanted to know
who else was involved,

so I could understand
my place in the larger picture
and connect with others

who might have been
silenced too.

And she said…
yes. There were others.

She’d been
talking to them.

But she wouldn’t tell me
their names.

Wouldn’t offer
to connect us.

Later, I found out
that one of those people
had wanted to talk to me for months.

Had asked Briar
for a connection.

And Briar didn’t tell me.
She had known.

We were both asking
for the same thing.

And she kept us
apart.

Turns out, this may
have been because

putting our stories together
made her incongruent.

I want to give her
the benefit of the doubt
because I cannot say for certain,

but for me and this person at least,
incongruencies were detected

and deeper attempts at the truth
were allowed to be made. I cannot

give my new friend’s story here,
but I will say that after this

I directly asked Briar
if it was my story and mine alone
that made her decide

this “Great Maw” conspiracy
was true.

It was to my great grief
that she said yes.

That she had been
desperately trying

to affirm something
and had felt relief when

my story gave her

the hinge to confirm
a thing she had been secretly
believing.

But what astonished me
is that she didn’t take this
as any indication

that she may have been
wrong. She merely accused

me of being unfaithful to her
after all this “care”

and told me that my loyalty to Sasha
frightened her.

She shifted the conversation to herself.
How drained she was. How much she

had already done for me.
How she and others had

“given selflessly”

and supposedly never
asked for anything in return.

As if asking me to believe
in what she was saying

and dealing with the consequences,
in Texas, alone,
was a fate I just had to accept

unfortunately.

It was subtle,
but it landed hard:

She was the giver.
I was the taker.

And my request for clarity
was, not only too much,
but somehow selfish.

Condemnable.

“My dear sweet dog,
are you not satisfied
with licking vomit off the floor?

After everything
I’ve done for you?”

What became clear
is that I had asked for truth,

and what I got was
emotional management.

I asked for solidarity,
and I was met with
gatekeeping.

Briar had the information.
She had the context.

And she withheld it—

not because it was protective,
but seemingly,

in my opinion,
because it kept her in control.

And then, when I pushed,
she made it seem like staying

in conversation with me
was a kind of a kind of pity
dressed as generosity.

But generosity without transparency
is just a performance of care.
To say I snapped

would be an understatement
honestly.

I asked her directly how the readings
Amaya had given me, which caused intense
destabilization, were any different

than the claims she had
from people against Sasha.

I tell her I don’t care
if she never recommends
people to my support group again

because she had always misrepresented it.
It was never

a hate group against any one person,
but a place for witches to come into themselves.

Find their own power.

To not rely on the mastery of diviners,
outside spirit doctors or
spell casters to perform

work and take credit for all the power
for themselves.

Days of Silence.

I ask her how
she can expect me to call it care

when it comes with so many
stipulations of how I have to now

serve her interests and believe in her visions
and ideologies.

Days of Silence.

I ask her how she thinks
Joan of Arc might
feel about this.

She rages.
She blocks me.

—

The worst part is—
Jesse warned me.

Back when I was still begging
him to believe me, still halfway

in a spiral and halfway
trying to be the bridge,

he told me
he had done divination
on the Sasha situation.

And Exu said:
“It’s all business.”

Jesse wants to claim
I didn’t trust the divination.

But from my perspective,
Exu never said which side
the business was on.

If he did, Jesse never
made that clear to me.

All he said was that
Briar was manipulating me,

which made me feel managed,
embarrassed, and deeply confused
at the time

if I’m being honest
with you.

Even to this day,
where I’m standing

is that it was easy for me
to be confused.

Because in my eyes,
Jesse does run his house
like a business—

hierarchical,
individualistic,
invested in image

over intimacy,

a network of people
who support each other’s
finances and not much else it seems.

And from my own experience
and observation, I still stand by that.

But what I didn’t want
to admit at the time—

what I couldn’t afford
to see—

was that I was also being managed,
curated, and fed through another

system of care
that was also
transactional.

If I hadn’t been trying so hard
to defend Briar’s integrity—

if she hadn’t been the only one
offering me consistent care at the time—

I never would’ve lashed out
at Jesse with the kind of rage

that I did. I thought I was protecting
my ally. I didn’t realize I was defending

a market of spiritual storytelling,

one in which my pain was the proof,
my confusion the currency,
and my loyalty the product.

That’s what no one told me.

That spiritual capitalism doesn’t always look
like a storefront. And social capital doesn’t always

have to be so obviously
curated or dynamically invoked.

Sometimes it looks like a whisper chain.
An unsolicited reading.

Secret confirmation passed
between diviners, each one

more convinced than the last
that the truth must be protected—

even if it means controlling
who gets to speak it.

And you don’t realize until too late
that the story is already written,
and you’re just the body

they’re asking to act it out.
Objectified, subjectivity removed.

And when I stopped
performing the role?

When I christened myself cast
as both victim and villain
by the vicissitudes of fate,

when I asked questions,
set boundaries,
sought truth instead of loyalty;

The care
vanished.

The silence came next.
Always followed by a reversal.

Always set off by rage.

Because what I was never allowed to do
—what none of them could tolerate—

was to remember myself as a person
outside their script. A person who had a spirit.

A will.
A voice.
A truth

not handed to me
by divination, but forged
in the fire of survival.

That is what was stolen.

Not just time.
Not just clarity.

Not even the intimacy
of Jesse’s quimbanda network

that I lost by exploding,
as truth be told, that bridge
would have burned one way

or another
most likely
anyway.

But the most deep abuse
to my sovereignty,

my sense of self,
my healing,

my return to my own power,
was my right to my own meaning.

My story, not theirs.

Because the most violent thing
about being caught in other’s
oracles wasn’t just what they said—

it was how they made me question
the shape of my own reality.

Every feeling became a symptom.
Every doubt,
a sign of my unworthiness.

They didn’t just offer stories—
they replaced any ability to curate
my own self worth

with a version of me
that wasn’t really there.

And that’s where we come back to ethics.

To me, divination isn’t just about what’s seen.
It’s about how it’s held.

It’s about whether the seer is listening,
or just speaking.

It’s about whether care
opens the field, or builds
a fence around you.

When prophecy becomes profit,
when care becomes control,
when community becomes a market

of curated allegiances—
I cannot help but be suspicious.

Have we lost sense of the sacred?

And I will not
participate in that
anymore.

Let this be another one
of my famous reversals.

Let this be one
in a lifetime of palinodes.

I will never draw a retraction
on the wound, and I will always refuse
to carry the lie.

If we are to build a different kind of magic,
a different kind of community,
a different kind of care—

It starts
by saying:

Not like this.

—

At the end of it
I am left

to say that I do not
believe Amaya or Briar acted

with oracular clarity or an intent
towards an ethics that fostered

true community.

In the end, I felt
manipulated.

They had given me
no true prophecy, only

a phantom to keep me
cold in bed.

Their divination didn’t offer clarity;
enclosed me in a story
that served their own positions of power.

What I needed was ground,
but they gave me scaffolding made of silk—

graceful, yes.
But only if you don’t pull.

And I am eternally
curious, so of course

I pulled.

So let it
collapse.

Briar withheld information that could have freed me.
Amaya handed me visions that destabilized me.

Neither of them ever asked me if I wanted any of this.
They simply assumed their certainty was care.

That is not love.
That is not healing.
That is not priesthood.

That is not even
divination done

properly.

And I don’t care how kind their voices were,
how soft their words,
how well-meaning they believed themselves to be.

Control wrapped in gentleness is still control.
Containment draped in silk is still a cage.

And when I tried to speak—when I tried to say,
"this doesn't feel right,” they spoke

the same curse always spoken
against any prophet.

The revolutionary is always
the problem.

That’s the moment I knew:
the grace had rotted.
The oracle had curdled.

And I would no longer be the lamb
for their self worshipping style

of truth.

I do not serve anyone’s narrative
anymore. Not Briar’s. Not Amaya’s.
Not Jesse’s. Not Sasha’s.

I serve the priesthood that listens.
The one that doesn't demand my silence

in exchange
for care.

So now I walk with scars—yes.
But also with eyes that see.

So I wrote out this gift
and give it to all of you as

an offering.

There is no cry
for vengeance here.

Nor is this
regret.

This is the priesthood
of recognition.

This is the edge where faith
supplants hope.

This is where I stop,
look back,

and write it
down—

exactly as it was
in the red stained caverns

of my holy body

that sighs
and sings.

I would be
honored

if you would
walk and tend

this garden
of trees
beside me.

Palinode - On the Question of why/what/how V was/got/is Spirit Sick
aka; Guilty

No there is no
wolf in the story, unless
you mean grief.

No there wasn't
something to save, except
for the grief.

No there was never
an answer to the riddle, unless
you mean grief.

No this can't be removed
from its history, especially
the grief.

No this isn't
about Sasha—

this grief.

But the grass still parts
as if something moves
beneath it.

I kneel to drink
and there is no

thing but warmth and
the sound

of myself
not saying
empty

nothing.

This witch’s scar—
just water,

still living
in a hole

underground
I alone

must carry.

No this isn't
grief—not death not
forgetting—

it’s just the snow
of the mountain’s hair
melting slowly

into syntax.

No, El Shaddai
does not scream
when she blows.

She vibrates
from the ground up.

Her mouth is in the foot.
Her breath:
a rabbit tunneling.

Her mind:
still wintering
in salt-white stillness.

That calm peace
ful silence.

It isn’t a door.
It never was.

He was not standing there.
That wasn’t his voice.

Only pressure.
Only volcano.

She comes—no
choice but to answer.

No, I will not
name her again.

This grief

has teeth, but I
have learned how to close
my mouth.

In the hush where
mulberry shoots nurse the wound
of too much saying,

I named the god once.
Now I let the cut
flower

molten
red

in blooming.

Tips

Footnotes;

[1] Plato, Phaedrus, 238c-d
[2] Cixous's Stigmata, or Job the dog, Stigmata, 152-153
[3] Lambert-Wilson, Peacock Angel, 78, quoting, Sheykh Adi’s Kitab al-Habashi, found in Guest, Survival among the Kurds, Appendix
[4] Lambert-Wilson, Peacock Angel, 93, quoting, Awn, Satan’s Tragedy and Redemption, 124.
[5] Frisvold and Hatthoway-Diaz (who never got his rightful share), Exu, 101
[6] Frisvold and Hatthoway-Diaz (who never got his rightful share), Exu, 139
[7] Extrapolated from Lambert-Wilson, Peacock Angel, 94
[8] Extrapolated from Song of Songs 1:4-5
[9] Extrapolated from Song of Songs 1:5
[10] Song of Songs 1:12
[11] Cixous, Stigmata, 117
[12] Song of Songs 1:6
[13] Extrapolated from Song of Songs 4:16
[14] Carson, Decreation, 220
[15] Extrapolated from Song of Songs 2:5
[16] Song of Songs 4:9
[17] Song of Songs 6:5
[18] Extrapolated from Song of Songs 3:4
[19] Song of Songs 4:10
[20] Extrapolated from Song of Songs 2:17
[21] Extrapolated from Song of Songs 4:12
[22] Extrapolated from Song of Songs 3:1
[23] Extrapolated from Song of Songs 2:6
[24] Extrapolated from Song of Songs 6:4-5
[25] Carson, Decreation, 220
[26] Extrapolated from Song of Songs 2:5
[27] Extrapolated from Song of Songs 5:6
[28] Extrapolated from Song of Songs 3:5
[29] Extrapolated from Song of Songs 3:2-3
[30] Extrapolated from Song of Songs 5:4
[31] Extrapolated from Song of Songs 5:7
[32] Extrapolated from Song of Songs 5:11
[33] Song of Songs 3:4
[34] Song of Songs 3:8
[35] Extrapolated from Song of Songs 5:9
[36] Extrapolated from Song of Songs 4:5
[37] Song of Songs 4:4
[38] Extrapolated from Song of Songs 5:14
[39] Extrapolated from Song of Songs 6:9
[40] Song of Songs 5:3
[41] Extrapolated from Carson, Decreation, 220
[42] Lamborn-Wilson, Peacock Angel, 97-98, quoting Awn, Satan’s Tragedy and Redemption, 129.
[43] All quotes from Tata in this piece come directly from his public condemnation against V
[44] All lines from Maraba in this piece come from her favorite song, Julia (or, ‘Holy to the LORD’ on the Bells of Horses) by mewithoutYou
[45] All lines from V in this piece come from Maraba’s favorite song, Julia (or, ‘Holy to the LORD’ on the Bells of Horses) by mewithoutYou

SaturnVox

Exegesis on the Gospel of V

(As Translated from the Tattooed Scars that Stain the Body)

Sasha Ravitch

Speech

Palinode - On the Question of Whether Sasha Chose Me

Jesse Hathaway Diaz

Speech

Palinode – On the Question of Whether Jesse Was My Father

Act IA Fever in Three Voices

Act II V’s Song of Soliloquy - A Monologue

Act IIIThe Soapbox and the Backbeat of Maraba

Briar of the Greene Chapel and Amaya Rourke

Speech

Palinode - On the Question of why/what/how V was/got/is Spirit Sickaka; Guilty

Khimaira Manifesto

Doubt and Distance - On Taurus 1 and the Five of Disks

Act I
A Fever in Three Voices

Act II
V’s Song of Soliloquy - A Monologue

Act III
The Soapbox and the Backbeat of Maraba

Palinode - On the Question of why/what/how V was/got/is Spirit Sick
aka; Guilty