(I started writing this text as a description of the scenes that Xiu Xiu’s song “Sad Pony Guerilla Girl” was conjuring up for me. I did take some liberties but hope you can enjoy it nonetheless!)

Walking in the streets, repeating the mantra in my head, convincing myself of its veracity. Smiling at passers-by, passers-by smiling back at me. Everything’s going great. It’s a great and loving community we live in; I’m so lucky to be part of it. What edge in my voice? I’m just humming. I smile more broadly. The skin around my lips tightens, mirroring the stretched flesh around my eyes. Eyes wide open; smiling, glittering eyes, with an upside-down smile on their lower lid. The windows to my world, to ours. The only one. We are alone in this world. It has always been that way. Fortunately we are here to support one another.

Faces we’ve painted a smile on, whose mouths we have reshaped as smiles. Going about their little routine in their little world.

Everything is normal.

Yet it feels so natural. It’s the only way, anyway. You wouldn’t want to revolt just for the sake of it, would you. Just to prove yourself you can. That would be utterly ridiculous. Besides, you already know who we are.

You’ve known us for so, so long. You’ve always known us. You couldn’t possibly know us any better.

We are unity.

In their glittering, smiling eyes is assurance and maturity.

Blinkers on the sides. Comforting, protective blinkers. My heart is protected behind a barricade of bones. Our community.

Yet what if I revolt? And why the blinkers? A weak point in our back?

Enemies always attack from the front. It has always been that way. Since forever. They want to separate us. But we are unity and coherence, and they will fail.

 

They attacked from the back.

Going for our hearts, singling us out. The others weren’t noticing, focussed as they were on the front. But the veneer peeled away. For each heart extracted, a rib fewer for all of us. More focus on the front. Fewer and fewer ribs. Fewer and fewer hearts to protect.

All the hearts are now out. Abnormality, individuality. The former unity wasn’t individual. Now I am at one with myself. I’m inseparable.