Image: Quinton Coetzee

divine rites

don’t open your eyes yet
the want is ravaged and set alight
I will call your pain to me
name your beasts to do my bidding

call me back

to worship with wanton knees and eyes
nail my collarbones to the bedroom door
and drink from my bruised lips
a dream like this demands a hungered sacrifice

call me back

to your kingdom on this starless night
the rain so reckless in the shadows
let me dream of your trembling spine
and pry open your butterfly ribs

call me back

to plant moonflowers in your blood
they only bloom carefree in the dark
let me honour you with what remains
beyond skin and crushed days

call me back

to your bed, your voice drowns
out the world. Was it even real?
I just want to feel you – here and here.
all I touch is glass

awakening
still / again

christmas morning constellations traced on your skin / undressed / spilled / beneath
the quiver ing lashes and breathless light /enfolded below the midwinter dawn / so
stolen between  

the call of the day and the coffee /(do you want to go and see the worst of me?) /heaped
clothes on the  creaking floor / a tangible whisper in the curtains / the red farewell /stars
sighing in your image/  

and the resurrection of today/ sheltered twilight /can’t hide the embers mined in / the
dead of  night /still on my lips / I am still starving /my heart half eaten / still obsessed/with
what remains  

of the distant bedrock / the thunderwounds of yesterday / (do I not burn when
I bleed?)  I hold your hand/ through these hurting dreams to support their
weight/ still /again/  

we summoned and witnessed / an unspeakable trinity  
come / here / tonight /  

Despair  
Desire  
& the small Death  

(prayer is whatever you say on your knees) and if you can’t forgive what lurks
below the skin /  remember / I am fire-tongued and anointed by your touch
/deciphering the holy infliction  

of having been wild and perfect for a moment / (thirst to thirst) / surrender
now /  (your fingers in my hair / my mouth / covered in my blood) / hold
me / in this space  

we are rebuilding the universe / my words are the bare bones /  
painted with the colours  

you have  
shown me  

/ l o v e /  

this is how we retaliate / desecrate the decaying temple /with solemn lunar
devotions  feral laments / spellbound in the marked sheets / the unmade bed  

(I think we’d survive in the wild) 

all hallowed
to be read in case of emergency

we crossed this ocean /I lost the ground / the moon
drew me/in /my crimson tides /beckoning your hands
in red /on the mirroring surface / the light of early dawn
come
falling
apart

celestial bodies of water / on the fine shoreline before sleep
betroth my hands / to your breath/your elfin throat
vowing /gasping / on half of the dead stars
to be strange / to be beautiful / to be wild / to be/
open water

crashing on broken shells / blessed October sand
a litany / a siren song / an unchanging state of affairs
I am not going to hurt you /cannot resist the call of
continued disturbance and fractures on the wind

a tear bled / into black ink stains/blossoms / into a word
echoes into a constant dream yet untold /let’s send a postcard
from
where
we
fell

some things are better on paper /some things are better
signed and sealed / in blood

When we share our stories, we realize that we are not alone with it. We begin to see the system that behind violence, injustice and exploitation. Telling our story is the connecting moment to take action and to initiate change.” Kate MacAlister (she/her) is an author, feminist activist and founder of the multilingual community arts and literature project Stimmen der Rebellion/Dengê Berxwedane/Voices of Rebellion. Her works have been published in journals and anthologies all over the world. Kate’s debut chapbook “songs of the blood” is filled with poetry that speaks of human connection and the dreams of revolution. Coffee, her cat Bella and, naturally, her activist friends are particularly important for her creative process. Find Kate on Instagram at @kissed.by_fire.