In Conversation with Alejandra Pizarnik, Pt.2

“Continuity” Alejandra Pizarnik, 1963

Not naming things by their names. Things have barbed edges, lush vegetation. But who is speaking in this room full of eyes? Who gnaws with a mouth made of paper? Names that come up, shadows with masks. Cure me of this void, I said. (The light loved itself in this darkness of mine. I knew that there was absence when I found myself saying, It is I.) Cure me, I said.

“Emptiness” Aidyn Mills, 2020

I too was once pricked by the rigidity of things, with their barbed edges and insistent spokes. Then I noticed the light catching on the contours of these metal rims, revealing speckles of my reflection. I began to turn these and the other things at just the right angles, and soon they all became the same things. And then I knew there was emptiness when I saw myself.