Dancing in the dark
Dancing in the dark
the soft bits
Falling to the side
Hardly noticed I was smiling
as I reached deeper inside
I pull out my tusks
stick them to the side of my head
It makes it a little harder to hear
So, I use the beat of my heart
to keep dancing
My jaw distends
and sucks the eyes
out of the sockets
It might be a strange sight…but I still feel pretty
As I dance to
the beat of my
broken heart
I rip at my skin
push aside the flesh
my ribcage splays open
The bones make a great necklace
I bind them together
with my hair
My backbone protests
relocates and forms
a tail
It looks good
swaying to and fro
but it starts fighting with my liver
so I tell it to go
‘Where’ it demands…try dancing without me’
And off it goes, taking the lungs and kidneys
My heart is still pumping
starts dropping in a few extra beats
So now my womb gets involved
Screaming somewhat hysterically
“are you happy now”
My blood flows
Merges with
my tears and
my excreta
I tried to run away but my DNA got in the way
So there I stand
covered in blood and shit
and salty waters
It’s a strange sight
But I keep dancing
in the heart
of the dark
Broken
Rosanna Raymond
Sistar S'pacific aka Rosanna Raymond, an innovator of the contemporary Pasifika art scene as a long-standing member of the art collective 'Pacific Sisters', and founding member of 'SaVAge K'lub'. Raymond has achieved international renown for her performances, installations, body adornment, and spoken word.
A published writer and poet, her works are held by museums and private collectors throughout the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. A former Chesterdale Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, Rosanna was the Pacific Artist in Residence at Government House in 2017 and is currently a researcher for the AUT Marden funded project 'Vā Moana'.
