Mary Magdelene Lives Unwed
written by Livvy Winkelman
…and she is happy, still. She takes the train through the city, crosses her legs at the ankles, prays her rosary in taxicabs out of habit and a disbelief in something she loves so much it hurts. If she had a mother, she would tell her how much she wants to swallow the sun whole sometimes. That she thinks maybe that lifeblood will taste like Him. She remembers the days she bore witness and cried and carried and buried indelible wonder deep inside herself to rot at the roots. Her heart became a tomb a long time ago, her body a place for a soul to rest. She has been telling her own fortune since before she could walk, she was born with rosary beads between her teeth nevermind her coming before the prayer, predating consciousness, none of that matters.
The chronology of herself was swept away along with the dogwoods.
What matters, now, is how the knobs of her spine can be used as a tool of worship, how the shapes of her teeth inform her mouth of holiness. How the permeating scent of pierogi makes her heart jump when the babushka next to her on the train clutches at dollar store tupperware to keep her knotted hands from shaking.
She has not cut her hair in many years, and now it reaches the pristine soles of her feet. Tomorrow, she will go on a date with someone pretty and she will laugh and she will eat and when she returns to her one bedroom she will not cry but instead she will smile, take off her makeup without using a mirror, and shower with water that smells of frankincense and myrrh and
sex.
Deeply reminded me of a Cocteau Twins song 💓