murder a child. I couldn’t watch the children killed; I couldn’t
watch the women taken one last time; throats bared; heads
thrown back, or pushed back, or pulled back; a man gets on
top, who knows what happens next, any time can be the last
time, slow murder or fast, slow rape or fast, eventual death, a
surprise or you are waiting with a welcome, an open
invitation; rape leading, inexorably, to death; on a bare rock,
invasion, blood, and death. Massada; hear my heart beat; hear
me; the women and children were murdered, except me, I was
not, when you say Massada you say m y name, I discovered
pride there, I outlined freedom, out from under, Him and him
and him; let him put the sword in your hand, little sister, then
see; don’t love them; don’t obey. It wasn’t delirium; or fear; I
saw freedom. Does Massada thrill you, do you weep with
pride and sorrow for the honor o f the heroes, the so-called
suicides? Then you weep for me, I make you proud, the
woman on the rock; a pioneer o f freedom; a beginning; for
those who had no say but their throats were ripped open; for
the illiterate in invisible chains; a righteous suicide; a resistance
suicide; mad woman; mad-dog suicide; this girl here’s got a
ripped throat, Andrea, the zealot, freedom is the theory,
suicide the practice; m y story begins at Massada, I begin there,
I see a woman on a rock and I was born in blood, the blood
from her throat carried by time; I was born in blood, the slit
between the legs, the one God did H im self so it bleeds forever,
one clean cut, a perfect penetration, the m emory o f Massada
marked on me, my covenant with her; God sliced me, a
perfect penetration, then left me like carrion for the others, the
ones He made like Him, in His own image as they always say,
as they claim with pride, or vanity I would say, or greed; pride
is me, deciding at Massada, not Him or him or him. Y o u ’re
born in blood, washed in it, you swim out in it, immersed in
it, it’s your first skin, warm , hot on fragile, wrinkled,
discolored flesh; w e’re born to bleed, the ones He sliced
Himself; when the boys come out, the toy boys, tiny figurines
made like Him, He has it done to them, sym bolically, the
penis is sliced so they’re girls to Him; and the toy b o y’ll grow
up pushing the cut thing in girls who are born cut open big,
he’ll need to stick it in and stick it in and stick it in, he doesn’t
like being one o f G o d ’s girls even a little; and it’s a m em ory,
isn’t it, you were girls to M e at Massada; a humiliation; think
o f the last ten, nine o f them on their big knees, throats bared,
one slice, the tenth sticks it up himself, there’s a woman I saw
in a porn magazine, she did that to herself, she smiled; did
number ten, the big hero, smile, a coy look at God, heavy
mascara around the eyes, a wide smile, the sword going in and
som ehow he fingers his crotch at the same time? The
