crystal theresa z. ejanda

Vilomah

If I told you this already it doesn’t mean I told it to you the same because nothing stays the same. Now is different now because now is a lie that is the only truth. And the thing I told you already is already not the same because I am not inside you because your eyes are not my eyes. Except the eyes are not what sees the thing because the thing is burned. The thing is not the same. The thing is.

Here’s the/my truth. Or here’s the/my lie. I already told you that my son died and his ashes were made and I took it home. It is the ash. The ash that is my son who was flesh of my flesh of my flesh of my insides. Home was my womb before birth is where he was formed before now. Home is my body where he began so I brought his ash the ash of my son-flesh into the/my body. Do you understand? Understanding is a lie because you do not exist in my head. You are not inside. You are not behind my eyes. You. That is a separation. My son was separated and I returned a separation from flesh of my flesh of my womb of my body back into my body.

The tribe—the one in the Philippines. Or the one in the Amazon. They mixed it with food. They mixed it but first it was burned because it had to be burned to release the soul. The soul is the thing that needs protecting. It’s the thing that is left after the rest is burned and ground into powder ash. The release is the protection is the eating. I am not in their heads behind the eyes. That is not possible. They eat. They eat with blackened faces but different ash not his because he is burned and ground and mixed with food because it’s protection because the soul. The soul. The soul must be held in the body somehow.

If truth is relative what is the lie? Or is everything a lie then? Are there concentric circles? Is it a circle called truth enclosing a circle that holds lies? Or does a circle called lies hold what is true?

The tribe—the one in Africa. The woman was supposed to kill her sons because she already had a child. She was in the forest because birth is born in the trees on the dirt above the roots of the trees. On dirt muddied by blood water. Two sons. She was not supposed to keep even one because she already had one because she already gave birth in the dirt of the trees with the older women surrounding her. She gave birth in the dirt of the trees with the older women surrounding her and there were two. There were two sons in muddied blood in muddied water. She held them to her breasts to make killing a lie. Because once a newborn child has suckled they can no longer be killed. The boys at her breast became the truth and she walked back to the tribe carrying two suckling boys at her breasts stained with blood and water. The suckling twins could not be undone because she brought them to her breast before killing was the truth. She brought the boys the living flesh of her womb home. They accepted it and killing became the lie. It is the living sons.

You know this already but it’s not the same. You know that birth is a lie. Death can be carried in a womb that gives home to dying. Death can be brought to a weeping breast.

She cooked bananas. She cooked them in the microwave. I cooked them in their peels. I pulsed them in a food processor. I pulsed everything. The lie is that everything was never there. The skin and flesh of it. She/I cooked the thing. She/I ate the thing because nothing was left. She/I told you this. Food nourishes. Except when it does not because it can spoil and rot in the gut of things. In her gut. In my gut. In the belly of things. Bananas were the thing. But the skin was chosen because the skin of it. The skin of it is the thing. She did not want the sweetness of the thing because her son is dead. The skin of the thing is what I wanted because the skin of the thing made me gag and gagging was the truth of the thing. The thing behind the eyes. The thing behind her/my/your eyes is hidden. The skin holds everything. The skin exposes it all.

The tribe—one of them or all of them. When they cannot find the bodies. Or in war when the enemy hides the dead bodies to make the souls suffer. No bodies to burn. No ashes. The soul goes missing to the in-between place of unrest. And they wail. They wail and wail and wail and search for the bodies that are hidden so the souls stay hidden. It’s a threat.

How do you trust? If now is only relative to what is past and what is coming and the only truth is what is now because nothing stays the same then truth is relative and so are lies.

The urn broke and the ashes spilled is how the thing began. But no the thing really began before when the womb birthed death. But no even before that before that before. Before the thing became the thing and the womb was the thing that gave breath before breath and the thing was not it and there was no ash of his ash from the burning of his body because it was water that held him. The ashes spilled from the urn and she remembered the tribe and she brought the ash of him home because there was nothing else because anything else would be a lie. Anything else would take away the truth of his flesh of her flesh of his body. His body that was real that was true until the burning and then the ash held the truth of him. The ash is a lie but the lie of the ash is the only truth of him left. Do you understand?

If she told you this already she is telling you again because nothing stays the same so this is not the same. Even now is different from her last if I told you this already because nothing stays the same. Her son is dead and he keeps on dying and he won’t stop dying because every now is a new dying and dirt and bloodied water and ash.

Crystal Theresa Z. Ejanda is a mother-wife-writer who holds an MFA from the University of San Francisco. Her work has previously appeared in New South, Still Standing Magazine, and Haiku Journal. Her explorations include grief, food, and semi-crunchy living.