The written text by Leslie Moody Castro

[ένα]

I have lived on an island with only a flower and flame. The Fortunes rested on my shoulders and I occupy the smallest of islands which once existed in a place between opacity and the magical realism of my making. I lived isolated somewhere beautiful, somewhere in a dream, and I was but a body existing between a flower and a flame, where the edges of sand and sea marked the edges of my own boundaries. 

And here I have lived unfettered and at my own liberty. 

I carried the flower in one hand. I held the delicate and light stem erect between finger and finger where it lived tall in defiance of gravity. Petals delicate and soft stretched their reach tall and long and stem extended into my fingers and into my arms and carried roots that became my feet that occupied soft earth under soft sky. 

In one hand I carry the flower, and in the other the flame. It lives open in my palm, perpetually vulnerable, perpetually benevolent, everlastingly ignited. It flickers day after day in its soft power, a small fissure of flame expending the fire racing within me. 

I have lived on my island happy and free, existing as a simple being, carrying the Fortunes on my shoulders, in one hand my flower, in the other my flame, within my own boundaries of sand and sea. 

[δύο]

I once lived a life surrounded by beings full of the wealth of happiness and glee. I was once a simple mortal soul who shared a small stretch of the world with the strength of a flower growing in defiance of gravity and a flame expending the fissure of fire racing within me. I happily shared the Fortunes that this open and accepting world gifted me. 

This is not the story I thought it would be. It is instead a story of the thin moment of existence shared, of layers of foundation built then dismantled, of a mind ready to forget the being he attempted to erase. 

But every single part of this body carries a memory 

What would be found if you cut me open and spread my parts out on a table? What would you find beneath the sinews and ligaments, the muscles and bones? This body is home to unseen geographies built and yet to be discovered, a palimpsest of universes and memories of a presence beneath reality.

My fantasies battled my Fortunes and I opened my boundary of sand and sea. I shook loose from my roots, turned my hand, and buried my flower deep, freeing space to occupy the shapes of him. I made room for the shape of his neck, the shape above his shoulders. My unoccupied fingers wrapped up and around. I tempered my fissure of fire to carry the shape of the curve of his spine, the bend around his waist. My unoccupied fingers rested atop his hip. I gifted him my gravity. I traded my flame to share his. I allowed my universe to flicker for his promise of something great and something true.

Now my body exists in the shapes of loneliness he left around me, alone in the world of abandonment we created that was built merely on his fiction and fantasy. He occupies the life of identities he never shared with me, his small kingdom of father to daughter and husband to wife, all in existence parallel to me. 

My world once surrounded by beings full of the wealth of happiness and glee is now simply the tragedy of flower buried and flame tempered. I became but a body branded by the memory of what was never a reality. 

[τρία]

I built this island with and within my grief. I pulled my withering flower from the ground where it was once planted and reset it in my hand between finger and finger, its roots pulling up soil and sand and leaves. I set about my journey, leaving this world of wealth of happiness and glee, withering flower dropping withering petals planted in what was never meant to be. 

I walked from place to place, crossing mountains and centuries. I crossed the lines between what you see and what you don’t and I stretched and evolved, I grew and transformed. The flower in my hand became steadily stronger, slowly growing into my arms and into me. The roots dragged behind me collecting soil, sand and leaves, collecting all the things necessary to be free. 

My Fortunes returned when my once tempered flame reignited the fissure of fire in me. I crossed mountains and centuries and followed my small but imperishable flame and watched as it filled with the oxygen of freedom, and it began to grow and race its perpetual hot benevolence through me. 

I crossed mountains and centuries, crossed land and reached bridge, took step upon step as bridge burned to ashes under me, severing ties with the world that could never be. In one hand my flower grew stronger in defiance of gravity, my roots collecting everything behind me. My Fortunes rested on my shoulders, continuing to move me, guided by the light of my flame as I stepped first foot off bridge, over water, and on sand that marked the beginning of my boundary. 

With flower light and erect between finger and finger, stem extending to arm, roots extending to feet, I planted into soft earth beneath soft sky, forming a small island around me. My Fortunes collected the soil and sand and leaves dragging behind me, all the things necessary to be free, and continued to dredge my boundary that grew between sand and sea. The flame in my hand a fissure of fire coursing in defiance, occupying the space where he once possessed me. 

And I came to live on this island, built with and within my grief, carrying the Fortunes on my shoulders, in one hand my flower in the other my flame, within my boundaries of sand and sea, unfettered in my own liberty.