And Ajax Was Not Worthy of the Name
Magaly Roy est une chorégraphe, poète et essayiste québécoise. Ses écrits ont été publiés dans diverses revues et anthologies littéraire au Québec, au Canada anglais et en France. Elle s’intéresse aux différents pôles identitaires qui habitent les souverainetés. Ses écrits, souvent des vers transformés en prose, explorent les thèmes de l’émancipation, de l’indépendance et de la physicalité. Elle étudie au baccalauréat en études et pratiques littéraires depuis 2024.
And then we were two. Then tongue, forceful hands. And my silence, loud and clear, was not proof enough of your deeds, only a testament to my consideration. I have hardly fought for myself, focused instead on keeping you afloat, gilded. Maybe the curse is to fear you forever.
I have been lumber, a paper mill for scandalous headlines, a body of ink for slander. But my kindness has only cost me. And my pain has only scared you.
Your rebellion trumps mine. Your army’s blood boils while mine listens and tries to heal. I am on the wrong side of a war I started alone. My truth birthed beasts as it sought refuge. And I wanted to survive myself. And you wanted to save your name from a threat I never posed.
‘No’ is a word of many meanings, after all. And a man in lust will ruin the woman he has yet to take. He gets the long end of the stick. You had the stick. All I could do was take and take and take, but I could never keep. The choice and words had evaporated to feed you.
I can only nurse the parasites for which there is no medicine. I have been given pills and told these feelings are valid. Like I’m the sick one. Since I am no God.
And here I am two. Every night, this bed only hosts my body, but you occupy most of me. The sky plummets over this wretched body, the hours spent awake like a napping Moon. Ceilings grow too tall for lullabies to be within reach. Prayers do me no good. The world keeps beginning. The horizon inexhaustible.
But there is this woman tattooed on the world who turns the Sun to stone. At times, she lets me hang on to the day, keeps me from my bed. She tells me you were never worthy of your name, that it was never yours, that nothing ever was. Her name carries the pain of every fearful nightingale. It starts with M. She knows my torso twisted to wring you out. My surface, a weak scar to hold the magma within.