Notes on an Execution

by Danya Kukafka

I AM AWAKE IN THE PLACE WHERE WOMEN DIE. —Jenny Holzer (1993)

Pity is destruction wearing a mask of sympathy. Pity strips you bare. Pity shrinks.

There was nothing like the love you had for your own child. It was biological. Primal and evolutionary. It was chronic, unbanishable. It had been living inside her all this time. Bone-deep.

Eternal

There is a millisecond of glory, in which you exist without it, in which you are bright, erupting. Full of love. This is it, you know. The sensation you’ve been missing. In this fading instant, it fills you to bursting—your life’s great and singular generosity.

Welcome, little one, Jenny would have whispered into each precious seashell ear. You’ll see. It’s good here.