Your skin is burnt but never dead Embedded in its brown melanin is a slippery bodyscape of wrinkles and pigments rubbing against post-colonial subjugation and ultra-violent obsessions The lines and outlines are always alive You peel it off callously and painstakingly like a masochist in disguise a reptile shedding its exterior revealing a new smooth layer as if nestling into pain is necessary a subliminal ecstasy Your skin is burnt but never dead The lines and outlines are always alive
SHERWIN ALTAREZ MAPANOO is a multidisciplinary writer, researcher, and nomadic visual ethnographer. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Art Studies (Interdisciplinary) from the University of the Philippines and a double post-graduate degree (with distinction) in International Performance Research and Theory of Art and Media, Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of Warwick, United Kingdom and the University of Arts, Belgrade, Serbia, respectively under the Erasmus Mundus programme. After years of being nomadic, he is now settled in the Philippines and has recently renewed his penchant for weaving words together.
The Pine Cone Review 