There is magic in your subtitles
In between the lines you are a poem

In the way you hold eye contact and extend it
the way you pull back gently
and come back in a cheeky smile

Remind me I am grounded to the earth bellow this cement.
Lift off the veil of social falsity created by the dread of being nakedly ones self
and how much easier it is to imitate a life then to inhabit your own.

In this conversation I crumble myself home kindly;
guided by the spells inside you.

Remind me breathing into comfortable silences with another
Remind me galvanized creation,
exchanges of playfulness
and auditive capturings…

Remind me to welcome home
the bond we had in a past we cannot enclose into verbal language
or even retrace.

Remind me to create my own language of riddles with you
and trust the understanding that lies in our unspoken.

There are shadows inside you.
An endearing none suppressed rawness
you do not shame away in a coffin and gift to Pandora.
It stands there.
still.
like a large body of water;
I cannot see where it had begun and where it might end.


Sometimes I insecurely miss you before you have even gone;
forget the riddles;
push the water
Act surprised when it comes back splashing in my face.

Remind myself I have been here before,
seen this with another
Forget patterns;
Forget this does not get me more,
it get’s me less.
Expect the boomerang to always come home but
sometimes it is tired,
sometimes it does not want to
sometimes, it doesn’t care enough to.


‘cause the boomerang makes no promises
no, the boomerang never promised

and you say
maybe that’s why I threw it in the air to begin with.

Picture frame not quite straight.
Blurry metro lines and fuzzy sign letters
Passing by, unaware and apathetic.
The shadows squirm.
The souvenir pictures on my phone are blurry.
Everything is turned to cotton, twisted wool.
Half asleep, as if you have just awoken from a dream
Consistently woken up on the wrong side of the bed

The music echoes
Some noises accentuated, others lowered
Distorted hearing and the occasional possibility that “it” isn’t there.

Restricted blinkers of an eyesight.

- Dissociation

(Two people are sitting down next to each other on a couch or bench, outisde in a park or inside in a living room. They are facing forward, not each other )

E: Sometimes when I talk to you it’s like, I miss you already... like I’m anticipating the moment you will be leaving. It makes me resent you, how easy it is for you to just get up and leave. So I push you away, and then stupidly love you more when you don’t come back...

He puts his hand out, as if to grab her hand or her arm, but fails mid action.

E: Don’t. (She continues to stare forward, not looking at his gesture but knowing what he’s doing. Her lips stand straight and serious)
I don’t want that. (she reads his mouvement as a sign of pity)
I… I need to push you away or else I’ll love you. Maybe...if I let myself love you, I’d realize that it wouldn’t be as strong or as bad as I worry it would. Maybe it’s the restraint that makes it grow, like when you are holding in an orgasm instead of forcing yourself to have one.

(He laughs a bit, quietly. looking down at his feets. His smile holds a bit to one side and then falls back to seriousness rapidly, making it look a bit forced or anxious)

E: (still not looking at him) Maybe I’m just the victim of my own games. An obsessive, shy and anxious delusional romantic-that lives in her own head- with attachment issues that make me seek validation from emotionally unavailable men. Expecting them to validate me enough i’ll be able to love myself. (she is staring at her hands, fingers crossed between her legs, her back is bent forward in insecurity and/or self protection)

(He smiles cheekily and tries to take her hand again, kind of platonically, kind of ambiguously. She lets him craving a demonstration of his affection. She looks at him)

T: I don’t mean to…

(pause)

E: I know. (stares forward again) You dream like a child half the time and deny the rationalist inside you the other half. Part of you was conscious you were doing this tough, you just didn’t want to acknowledge it. (looks at him again shyly)

T: Doing what? You can’t just...

E: THIS! Don’t fucking gaslight me.
(pause)
You know...(calmer. exhales)

T: Oh…

(pause)

T: What’s gaslighting?
(even longer pause, she doesn’t answer. They booth avoid eye contact. He takes his hand away and draws into his mind, his hands holding his face, looking pensive and possibly a bit bored)

E: What are you thinking? (She gets up quickly, a bit frustrated, shifty the energy of the room, lights up a cigarette and ashes on the ground.)

T: Well… (Looking at her with wide eyes, exaggerates his wide eyes kind of insistently and exhales loudly. He gets up but doesn’t face her. He is facing the other side, half turning his back to her)

E: You’re such an asshole… (he turns toward her mid sentence)

T: But you never…

E: Neither do you..

T: Yeah but…

E: Are you fucking serious? You’re the one that...that fucking....(She pushes him with both hands with very little strengh, there is playfulness in her gesture. She wants him to lean back in, but he doesn’t)

T: Pffffff (he takes a step backwards) I don’t get it. Why did you have to ruin everything?

E: Is everything ruined now? Is this situation ALL because of ME? You’re such a… Take some fucking responsibility....(She looks shocked and angry, opens her mouth wide, turns away from him but he catches her arm asking her to face him again)

T: Don’t… Please… (he gives her a begging stare)

(pause. they hold eye contact for a while, intensly)

E: Ok (she looks down to the ground)

T: Ok?! (trying to catch her eyes again)

E: (She is looking up, trying to intercept a little smile from appearing on her lips) Ok, but… you have to... (Her smile stops completely as she realises she is letting him off easy and neglecting her needs, she sounds more frustrated) just don’t….don’t...don’t...you know…! (she waves her hands upwards, elbows bent, a bit like a Sims, gesturing to say “fuck it up”)

(He takes a step back again, and exhales a bit)

E: (pulling him back in. grabs his arm) Ok, ok (smiles a bit, playfully)

They hold eye contact for a while again, with intensity.

*Bonus: ideas to pass the time during confinement 📸

Performance lip sync de la chanson'If the world was ending' by Julia Michaels & JP Saxe

Kindness is contagious, it trickles down. A drop of it can live on in someone for years

the following poems were written by
Mélanie Musisi (and read by myself):

Trigger warning : mention of sexual assault, harassment,
and pedophilia.
I remember the nightmare I would have as a child, of being paralysed and unable to scream for help. I remember the first time I realised being sexualised against your will feels paralysing. I had worn black shorts and knee socks to a family reunion. My uncle stared at my legs while I sat on the couch feeling ashamed of my outfit and the space my body was taking. I was 10. I remember being harassed on my five minute walk to school by some guys in a white van, I was 10. I remember a scooter almost running me over, freezing with fear in the middle of the road and the guy swooshing by welling ‘’’dirty whore’’ and everyone carrying on with their day. I was 10. I remember one of the school supervisors flirting with me everyday in the cafeteria, singing ‘you are my sunshine, me only sunshine’ and blowing me kisses. Him giving me his ring on valentines day. Him telling me of how he would bring me back to his place once I was 18. I remember thinking this was sexy. I was 11. I remember my principal telling me ‘’it’s for your own protection’’ when I asked him why I wasn’t allowed to wear this outfit to school, while he probably knew one of our teachers was a pedophile and did nothing about it. I was 11 or 12. I remember sitting in nightclubs and bars where men in the thirties would buy me drinks and listen to me invent stories about life as a twenty five year old med student living in New York. I was 12. I remember thinking they couldn’t tell I was a minor and that I was winning the game. I wasn’t. I remember loosing my friend in that very club and once she came out of the toilet cubicle with a man standing behind her, the buncer quicked us out. She was 12. I remember my friend giving her number to some 30 year old on a night out, and him harassing her over the phone. I remember the fear as she answered on the other end. She was 12. I remember her father banging against locked doors on vacation, telling us to come out. We were 12. I remember a friend on her knees and a guy saying ''suck my dick and I ll call you a cab''. She was 12 and his adress is still imprinted in my memory. I remember waking up to my friend laughing at a dick pic a man had sent her. She was 13. I remember a childhood friend going missing and her violent rape and murder being all over the news. She was 13. I remember him calling his equally older friend a pedophile for flirting with me just before kissing me. I was 14, he was 27. I remember a man staring at us in the street and masturbating. I remember running. We were 14. I remember telling a friend she shouldn't have told her, because if she didn't remember she had been raped it wouldn't exist to her. We we’re 16. I remember realizing trauma lives in your body and not remembering were it comes from feels like you are gaslighting yourself. It lives in the subtle noises of the night, its nightmares, in anxiety, the knots in your back etc etc etc. It is a flight mode constantly activated. I remember going back and back into my brain looking for it, the missing pieces of memory. I remember my friend telling me the most violent people in the world are victims and that if someone attacked her by surprise she would channel all that anger inside her in order to protect herslef, again. She was 16. I remember the night two guys followed us in a row and one of them hidding, with just his eyes and the top of his hat visible while we waited it out in a bar. We were 17. I remember the day he drugged me and I got away. I remember shouting in the metro “WHY ARE PEOPLE SO HORRIBLE?!’’, crying on the phone. I was 18. I remember the cops telling me he had a gun and thinking I could have died, I remember the therapist telling me ‘’I was lucky’’, because he didn’t rape or kill me. I was 18. I remember being manipulated into sex, pressured into it, wanting to say no, wanting to stop, saying no and him trying to convince me, saying no + euh... + ok..., doing it to be sexy or ‘’for him’’, saying no. I remember being scared everyday of bumping into him. I was 19. I remember proudly bragging about how older men seduced me as a young teen and the first friend who told me that was not ok and certainly wasn’t « cool ». I was 19. I remember him saying “I could rape you right now”, while lying in my bed. I was 19. I remember the therapist who told me I was asking for it. It was my fault for inviting him over. I was 20. I remember my first love raping me, and my friend telling me I shoudn’t lie about these things and have to give him space to heal now. I was 19. I remember thinking ‘wow alcohol is amazing’, and then realizing while telling the story to my friends that someone had put something in my drink, again. I was 20. I remember waking up with a guy touching me. I was 20. I remember learning the teacher I knew was a pedophile for the last 10 years, was probably going to be released after a 48 hours of detention. I was 22. I remember all the adults that knew about it and brushed it off saying it was probably just rumours (Who’s taking the risk?). All the adults that did not play their part of parent, protector, or carer and robed us from fragility, naivety, dreams, sleep and trust. I remember all these flashes that were seen too soon and burned my eyes and stomach, some pushed back towards the bottom of the iceberg. I remember telling a guy this week that I think the age where men were the most attracted to me and the most aggressively flirtatious towards me (aka harassing me online, following me, catcalling me etc.) was between the ages of 10 and 12 and it finally hitting me as I was saying it. I remember thinking I’m not sure if an older man has ever really been nice to me just because, without the end goal being sex. I remember my friends telling me one by one about their experiences with rape. How everytime it feels like they are announcing a death and I do not know what to say. There is nothing I could say that could make that death or that pain go away. I remember the anger, everytime I hear a new friend’s testamony. I remember telling my mother I could probably count my friend who hadn’t been raped on one hand. I was 19. I remember being a woman is constantly having to worry about safeness and survival (and that even in trauma there is cisgender and white priviledge), it is thinking of strategies to avoid being raped, beaten, insulted, harrased, or murdered and still being accused of not being careful enough when it happens. We’re my teeth not sharp enough that day ? Was I not afraid enough ? Did I not turn and look behind my back enough times ? Was my periphiral vision not wide enough ? Was my stomach not screaming loud enough ?

How much pain and violence has to be created before there are consequences ? How much trauma, how much grief, how many bodies, how many cries, how much terror? Before the tables are turned and the suvivors are not the ones being accused of surviving but the agressors are the ones being held accountable for their assults?


*“Men are scared woman will laugh at them.
Woman are scared men will kill them” - Margaret Atwood.

“The Asshole poem” aka FUCKBOY 101 and justified anger:

You played with the image of the unobtainable boy.
The one you are meant to feel sacred if he let’s you in.
Like it is a privilege to get anything from you that wasn’t polished in advance.

You fed me the things I must want to hear
And my frail ego took them starvingly screaming “at laaast”.

How come I believed the biggest compliment you could give me was about my physical beauty? As if it were my worth.
And how,
how did this not alarm me of this superficial fetus of a
“r-e-l-a-t-i-o-n-s-h-i-p”?

You hit and ran.
Thinking you would only do this once
When in reality you reverse geared until every single one of my bones was crushed, publicly arranged them on the sidewalk and smirked.

-“Where does this idolization of the asshole come from?”

The self-hating modern narcissus opens up and we feel lucky?
His mask of indifference melting onto his skin cause he thought it would make him a little bit less dull.
Blended himself into the shallowness of his pack.
You had been warned of his egotism but involuntary saw glimpses of what was underneath, and that attracted you.


-“All these things he said to you, he is probably saying them to her now...”
(aka “All these things he said to her, he is probably saying them to you now”)


Why do we feel like we are special, “not like the other girls”, when we are given the “privileged” glanced interest from the one who never shows his true self?

He shrugged and said he didn’t remember
Like he didn’t tremble when you first talked to him.
Like this wasn’t a power game for him to begin with.

And I am supposed to sit here
hating myself, hating the next?
Thinking it’s because I am not good enough?
I am supposed to spit out my beliefs? Compete?!




Let me tell you something:

You should be drinking my fucking bath water.
Not the other way round!
You should be the one thinking about how
How this speaks of your relationship with your father,
Freuding that shite up.
(Not me!)

You should be asking yourself “why?”
Why is it that you think you can decorate yourself with a woman?
And how come that makes you feel eeeven lonelier?
Like you are slipping away from yourself, treading water only partially ‘cause somehow people are praaising you for it.

And I am the one who is meant to be feeling ashamed?
Ashamed that I cared?
Solely because you act apathetic while thinking: “that is what “cool” men do”.


LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING:

I refuse to be reduced to the moments I cared for you,
Made the error of thinking that if I peeled off the layers I could see you.

The mask is so tight now, you can’t even discern the real center of yourself.
Built yourself into a hole were the choice should be and brought me down with your shallow hollowness.

Let me leave you with this:

Now, I know.




(‘and that’s the sound of me not calling you back’)

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Poems

Poetry reading inside immersive installation.

1. challenge yourself to a lip sync battle

2. Facetime your dog or your friend's dog

3. Make some masks and take selfies of yourself wearing them indoors

4. Have an online performance party with some friends

5. Take some funky pictures of your friends

6. Turn your house into a gallery

7. Don't go on Tinder

8. Turn your living room into an installation

10. And finally, just let your freak fly

9. Take pictures of the sky

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Poetry/sound interactive installation: the sound of recorded poems come out of the handmade pillows

Poetry/sound interactive installation: the sound of
recorded poems come out from two different sets of
headphones inside the cabin

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Interviews of contemporary witches sharing their relationship with magic.

Text from script of the movie Fight Club, scenario by Jim Uhls (book by Chuck Palahniuk, movie by David Fincher)

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Interviews in bed project

Cover of intersectional feminist fanzine named Shine (created and edited be myself, designed by Aurane Loury and Sarah-Camille Malandrin + filled by numerous participants)

Part of Cybersistas, intersectional cyberfeminist club based at the Labonrv (Lyon, France).

The waves settle and shrink
Dusk arises.
I can now see the horizon line.

A voice once told me of the sun,
awakening after night.
I did not believe anymore.
It hid behind tumultuous thought.

I marvel at the beauty of the light,
peaking while I swim
body still shuffling through the shrinking waves.

A voice once told me
“When you see it catch it, don’t miss it.”
for it might not come for you again.

but something pulls me back,
the comfort of knowing the night.

Poetry reading during exhibition 'Right In the Feels' at l'ERG, Brussels. (video password: RITF)

Lost pristinity
Flowers grow in your month while you regurgitate it out.
Cannot hold anything in the palm of your hands.
Weep for yesterday and tomorrow.
Weep for time passing by that cannot hold still.
The world is running away

Cleansing poetry reading while burning sage

Immersive installation (video projected onto mirror)

Performance + installation ("homemade" during confinement), music: 'Facetious' by Kari Faux)

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