• Vol. 01
  • Chapter 07
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T & Oh! Map

I hear, I remember the poet's words: “Beauty and the Illiterate”. Words uttered in my childhood, learned in my adolescence, before love was sung and memories were shared.

The cicadas were my beauty. The sun was my skin. You felt the warm sand of my hair between your fingers and tasted the sea salt on our lived-in bed sheets.

Then the tables turned. I was another. I changed again. And again. Until it was impossible for you to tell if in the morning, you'd seen the dawn of humanity in Africa, the rape of Europa, or if the previous night we'd been some exalted male and female deities of Asian creation. In short: you've seen too many backs in your life. These marks that you leave, they fade away so quickly... They are not meant to last.

And now, because you've erred on the wrong side of me and because you've wandered, and never gave enough of yourself away, you're lost. You cannot navigate. My face is hidden from you. As a good traveler, in perennial transit, you want to read beauty on a map. You ask for my help. “Where should I look for you?”

I'd rather remain anonymous than be baptised again by your blasphemous toponymy. I usually can't draw a map, but I can map the geography of stupidity following the meanderings of your insatiable lust. “And this, here?” you ask. “What is it ?”

This? Tis a “T & Oh! Map”: the new comprehensive illiterate cartography of beauty, you fool.

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