An Initiation

by Siobhán Fergus Evans

For Alison. For Imogen. For Shirley.

Take a teacup
(fine and white)
and fill it with
arsenic.
Take small sips.
Not enough to kill you -
just enough to make you
strong enough to survive
this world.
Take silver dollars
and bury them
deep in the meat of you.
Six strong moons
where your womb should be
(if any man is brave enough
to find them, slit his throat
while he sleeps)
Gather at the edge
of a dark forest.
Fill your hands with
bloody berries until
your skin is stained and slick; strip
the bark from trees
(and when that isn
’
t enough,
start with your own skin.
Peel back your face
to the living skull
underneath)
Make a home
in a haunted house,
a haunted country - these
fields made green with blood.
(Drink until the spirits
look back at you,
howling -
No.
You.
You are howling.
You are the howling one.
A whole island full
of monsters and
not one of them is
Not afraid of you)

Find stories.
Tell lies.
This is where the truth hides.
(the inarticulate shit
of being a trans girl
in this moment, this
place, it will
fuck you. It will
fuck you up…)
Up.
Keep. Climbing.
One raw foot in
front of the other,
scarlet footprints in
the wet grass on
the mountainside.
Climb
Climb.
Climb
(‘
til your arms shake)
Climb.
Let the whimpering
animal you are
drag itself up,
up.
Leave slivers of yourself.
Litter the ground,
small stars to
guide those who come after)
You are not the first.
You are not the first to climb this mountain,
but your blood can
mark the path for
those who follow.
And when they do
They will meet you on
the mountaintop,
and you can sit
side-by-side
and the two of you can solve
small, simple problems
like learning
how
to
live.

Siobhán Fergus Evans is a multi award-winning writer and interdisciplinary artist based in Glasgow. Her work blurs the lines between autobiography and imagination to explore displacement, queerness, and the uncertain territory of what might have been. Siobhán’s work has been shown at venues including the Southbank Centre, Tate Modern, Oxford Playhouse, and the Lowry and has been written about in publications like The Washington Post, The Guardian and Time Out.

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