My mother forbad us to walk backwards. That is how the dead walk, she would say. Where did she get this idea? Perhaps from a bad translation. The dead, after all, do not walk backwards but they do walk behind us. They have no lungs and cannot call out but would love for us to turn around. They are victims of love, many of them.
“Luciana and I spread boundless, oceans of braided wildwood. I said our adventure and she yes, brought things that said she wanted to agree. A patterned dress, a pound of sliced meat, a thin bra that turned her the pearlescence of a shell. We slipped into the hive some lustrous word, carving wooden houses, translating each other into texture and light.”
Alyssa Morhardt-Goldstein | Nympholepsy