Excerpts from “Freedom And Prostitution”
You travel mostly at night or at dawn
sometimes in groups of 200 or more
through the underbrush, through sewers and forests
and garbage and ditches
close to the ground where it is difficult
to move but small enough
to be protected by the rough chaparral
or barbed wire
lookouts circling overhead
Dramatic feeding
with buoyancy and grace
extirpation
how did you imagine
to be any different
on the executioner’s block
every whore gets what she is asking for
You are carried
until you learn to walk again
bringing your mother animals
and placing them in her mouth
surrounding her with flowers
not funereal
but to feed this enclosure
she cannot leave
the tender and innocent heart
of all systems of power
find new comforts
outside the symbolic
You try to drink
but the glass of water is almost too large
and too heavy to reach your mouth
you lift it quickly
so you can hold it before it slips
from your grip
while trying not to spill
or smash the glass
This is the fantasy of opposites—
how to live in the world
with those you don’t trust
You forgot how to write
the pen keeps falling out of your hand
or your grip is too strong
and it snaps the pen in two
or your script is so sharp
you rip the page and by the time
you’re finished there is no page left
This is a theory of antagonism—
how to have the same conversation for the next
ten, twenty, two hundred years
how to be the only one to say
we’ve been here before
in a meaningful way
You wake up and someone else is dead
you saw your sister die
you saw your mother die
when you say goodbye
it makes death real
Walking down the street
lights up
it’s midnight
no cars no rain
no tears
You blinked again and again
but you couldn’t clear your vision
you were separated from the others
you called out shrilly
and were answered
You slip away while
enemies argue
amongst themselves
ghosts of the plains
stabbing at internal organs
or chasing down on foot
A telephone rings
You answer it and a woman’s voice tells you
“I can’t leave if I don’t break
with the enemies that I’ve
unmasked”
You hang up the phone and walk across the street
to a boarded up liquor store
above it is an apartment building
with blown out windows
you climb the fire escape ladder
to the top floor and crawl inside
to shed your fear
The room is full of women
some from the chorus
some from old families
the street
other cities
You open your mouths to each other
sloshing a venom
trickling in
You say the erotic is a kind
of undeniable present and
you can’t wait any longer
you untie all the shoes
you lick every sole
you make yourself available
and open
you talk and laugh
planning discussing
some in a corner of the room
fucking in the sun
but not separate
as they add to the conversation
This is the reality of participation—
how to be separate but not a spectacle
how to be included but not a spectacle of appearance
You feel the threat of narrative
the weight of bodies
the not that holds your
ecstatic refusal
held by a stress unbearable
an anxiety produced in waiting
resonant querulous reports
small family groups
scuttling soft vocalization
WHERE are YOU?
Predatory and potent
erotic assimilations
stack in the sky
feeding in the air
watching the forests below
others are nearby at different levels of interaction—
sometimes enemies sometimes friends or
both
You call out
in love or distress
sounds resemble the cities
that used to exist
the names of the dead
how to articulate
this history that will be
through the past undone
CASSANDRA TROYAN is a writer and genderqueer communist who lives and teaches in southern Sweden. Their work explores the intersections of gendered violence, radical histories of resistance, sex work, and capital. They are the author of several books and chapbooks of poetry, including KILL MANUAL (Artifice Books, 2014) and A Theory in Tears (Kenning Editions, 2016), and have presented, performed, or screened their work widely. Recent writing can be found in Radical Paper Press, Social Text Online and their fourth book, FREEDOM & PROSTITUTION is forthcoming in September 2020 from The Elephants. They dream of a world without work, without money, and know that candlelight vigils will never be enough to avenge the dead.