by Elias Villanueva Gomez & Rachel Skoler
In the Judeo-Christian beginning, the word of God brought light, illuminating the land and giving form to Man. As an offering to mankind, God constructed Eve from Adam’s rib. Eventually, a canonical record of betrayal positioned Eve as the archetype of sin. The act of eating the apple unfolded with her body at the center of this traitorous transgression. In punishment, Eve was cursed to suffer under Man’s rule, banished from paradise, and doomed to a fate of painful childbirth. Alienated from her land, her love, and her body, Eve became the first to experience the pain of deviancy.
The figure of Eve reverberates throughout history. She lives in the margins of the page, the echoes of our sorrows, the colors with which we paint ourselves anew. No longer longing for paradise and free from Adam’s hold, Eve has become the voice that defies the logic of Man: the essence of all those who bite the apple. Caught in the battles fought on the body, we tell the story of the knowledge that once enshrouded Eve in a veil of sin. She explores this journey in the bodies of three unnamed and ungendered successors.
We begin with the body: Her body, our body, all bodies. All stories are told from the inside out, shifting between how Eve is perceived to how she feels herself. In these jumps and bridges, Eve exists in any language, any time, any place. Below, this mix of stories, poems, and internal thoughts mirror her shifting voice. Eve’s story does not stay still, it must move, change, shatter, and fall apart in order to rebuild. She explores what it means to carry a body marked as deviant, to love and desire when these expressions have been deemed wrong. This work does not try to erase that history but to live within it, to take what was once called sin and rename it as knowledge and power. And when Eve finally turns toward the world that made her deviant, she no longer asks to be forgotten and forgiven. Instead, she seeks to unearth the truth about herself buried in the lies of others.
White beams of light crept through the open windows to welcome me into the unknown. Heaven or Hell awaited me, past the line of Air Force shoes and baggy denim jeans. Inside, Purgatory reeked with the stench of adolescent masculinity. Encircling our arms, we weaved life force into the labyrinth of bodies, snaking through the holes in the crowd to carve out our own space. I stood surrounded by friends—and the woman I met four years ago, at a party eerily similar to this. The nights stayed the same, with the sticky floors and barren walls holding my lost memories of sleepless nights driven by Red Bull, Bacardi, and early 2000s pop.
We danced the night away in these dungeons of presumed sin. We created worlds of our own in the rooms of others. We fought a constant battle for territory. The clanking of moving bodies asked us to engage in a choreography of invisibility. The prodding of unidentifiable appendages cut into our backs, propelling us into the arms of comrades. Together, we swayed: a sea of femininity enclosed by towering men whose identities converged into one, identified by the uniformity of backward hats and khaki shorts.
Lost deep in yet another unforgiving New England winter, we discovered ecstasy in the mass of bodies. We felt entranced by the call of the dance floor and the lure of the drink. Our hips moved along the sway of our inner rhythms. We strung our arms across each other’s waists, swaying our hands up to the sky, as we reached for more, more, and more. We sang along with the music, bridging our voices to an orchestra, swirling across the invisible sound-waves. Our off-tempo, faulty lyrics served as the proud beacon of our illegitimacy. We reveled in our wrongness. Here, we became one, with our braided bodies and voices forming a fresh corpus of sisterhood.
Here is where I first laid eyes on Man. He stood off to the side, with the crowd parting like the sea to reveal his mysterious figure. He cradled a red Solo cup in his palm, lost in conversation with his pack of brothers. In the darkness of the party, it was easy to decipher the halo that hovered around his head. His eyes met mine, and for an instant, I felt special. We stood like this for a second, locked in contact, as a tingling sensation crept down my spine. In that moment, I discovered that I longed to be under his watch. I got lost in the embers of his fire. Under his gaze, I burst into flames and emerged anew. He saw me, but what he witnessed was not me. I became a version of myself I had never known, and could never recover. I could have stayed in that moment forever. Atop the ruins born of my destruction, he built me in His image. I longed to be Her.
Yet, to my dismay (and to my advantage), I was whisked away. My friend urgently sought more liquid to replenish her cup, dismissing the conversation of silently screaming desire which Man’s eyes and mine exchanged. I looked back. He was gone. The only trace of his existence was a trail of red dust, shining like letters handwritten in blood.
I walked into my room, another night, like many that have come before, like the many that bring me to quiet tears. The same type of night that sees me curled into a ball, tucked into the corner of my bed, asking why…
I’ve spent so many evenings like this. Ever since I realized something was missing without knowing what It is—It has grown, gotten deeper, more intense. It eats away on route to the depths of my being, hoping to touch ground, or a wall, or something strong enough to keep It still. And perhaps that’s it, what’s missing isn’t something or someone to fill the holes—but to keep It from spreading.
Ambiguity haunts what I say, what I share; most believe me lonely, some know me to be tired, anxious, blue; I, well, am uncertain.
All I know is, I open my mouth, open my thoughts, and what pours is an ode, a pledge, a constant plea to be sought, to be the one You wishes for.
“I could try to be what you need, not what I want, or what I am,” I remind myself.
You wouldn’t know that, You never witness the thing killing me, craving to own me. I bear the world with You in mind. There’s not much You can do with me, but I promise—I am worth something.
I can try to be worth something…
At the very least, let me try.
I see You in the many versions of Man.
And from the deepest, most buried impulse in my body, desire lassos Man to me, tethers my heart and mind to what my ears and eyes consume. My stomach churns, as if hungry, when my only hunger is a consequence of my heart’s famished state. In the eyes of others, I may never win; what I am will never find embrace as I access the light.
Perhaps dawn will break and day will reek of good fortune. I know tomorrow night will follow a tight script and I, with no end in sight, must follow suit.
Some night, “You/Man will come home with It/Me,” I pray to myself, before the weight of it all comforts any disagreement with my dreams.
En el cuarto, con el celular prendido.
No supe cómo explicarle que no importaba lo que dijera, por más que la conversación fluyera, yo no fluyo como él quiere. Digo mucho pero hago poco, nada pasa como lo manifiesto, y cuando por fin algo ocurre—a qué precio.
“Sal en 15”
“Ok”
“Esto no es normal, sentirte así no está bien”, me repito cada vez que un impulso sobrepasa mi capacidad de negarme, cuando mi código biológico avisa: “Hoy sí te toca. Busca a alguien. Algo. Busca algo que nos recuerde el propósito de haber nacido en este cuerpo”.
Logré salir de casa. Montarme en el tren y encomendarme a aquello que llaman ‘natural’ (pero que, al regresar a casa, se siente todo lo contrario). Al momento en que cierro la puerta de mi casa, mi conciencia despierta. Después de dos, tal vez tres, horas en este exilio autoimpuesto, solo me llama la ducha, la almohada y las ganas de fumar—me llama la necesidad de limpiar o borrar lo que hice, vivir como si nada, sin que nadie sepa; total, no hay nada que saber…
Me fui por la ruta larga, menos curvas, más tiempo para contemplar, decidir si esto es algo que verdaderamente quiero, o si quizás me he convencido de que esta es la noche en la que podré dormir con algún sentido de satisfacción.
Nunca sé qué ponerme, quería algo que no gritara “esfuerzo” pero sí dijera “lo intenté”. No nos conocemos, no sé por qué me debería de importar lo que piense. Mientras no sienta que vendo falsedades cuando me mire, no me importa si le gusta mi camisa o si cree que sé combinar la ropa o no.
Tal vez si eso me importara, no estaríamos aquí, tal vez no estaría mirando el celular, rogando que la próxima notificación no dijera “mejor lo dejamos para otro día”. O peor, que los mensajes desaparecieran y el viaje fuera en vano.
En la estación del tren, salidas.
Seguí las direcciones que me había enviado, y con cada calle y cruce mi ansiedad empeoró. No es la primera ni la última vez que terminaba en una situación como esta; como de costumbre, me puse a temblar, un nerviosismo involuntario que nacía de lo más profundo de mis huesos, que me delataría frente al Hombre. Por más que tratara de esconderlo, se notaba el miedo en mi cuerpo a ser percibido, consumido. Un carro pasó a todo volumen, la conductora cantando a todo pulmón De mí enamórate, de Daniela Romo; no tuve otra opción más que unirme a su llamado y liberar esa misma verdad aprisionada en mi pecho, aunque fuera por un momento. Sin notarlo, con la ayuda de las emociones de Daniela y la conductora, corrí el resto del camino, cantando, hasta que las lágrimas acudieron al llamado e inscribieron la letra en mis mejillas.
Llegué, esperé afuera cinco minutos, ideando, respirando.
“Estoy aquí”
“Ok, ahora te abro”
“Dale”
En las afueras de la estación, llegadas: en ruta a casa.
Después de lo que percibí como una eternidad breve, ¿tres horas o diez minutos?, me dijo adiós. Como de costumbre, “espero verte pronto”, respondí. No lo voy a ver, nunca lo volveré a ver. Por más que quiera, o me convenza que quiero, vivo realidades inciertas. Quién soy yo para discernir entre (ir)realidades. Lo real lo es porque lo toco, me toca. Aún así lo llamo inseguro e incierto porque así termina todo, inseguro e incierto. “Espero verte pronto” sabiendo que “pronto” nunca llegará, y “te volveré a ver”—solo cuando cierre los ojos al acostarme esta noche y las que le siguen.
Ella—esta oscuridad en la que comulgamos—es lo único real de todo esto.
Llegué a casa en un estado de delirio; lo único que me mantenía consciente era su olor en mi piel, mi ropa, mi pelo, las puntas de mis manos, todavía cubiertas de sal y sudor, lo puedo oler todo y al olerlo regreso, recuerdo el camino y donde me llevo, saboreándolo nuevamente.
Este proceso es bello, natural, común, doloroso, tal vez necesario, sin ello sólo viviría en las historias que consumo, en realidades que son aún más falsas. Cómo moriría por vivir en una de esas fantasías, en esas realidades concebidas con un final feliz. Aún si el héroe es trágico y la protagonista, imperfecta, yo daría lo que sea por convertirme en alguien.