PAWA 2023: Avoidant Attachment

This article is published in collaboration with Performance Art Week Aotearoa 2023. Showcasing performance artists from across Aotearoa and the world, Performance Art Week Aotearoa brings a stellar line-up of performance art works, workshops, discussion and happenings to Wellington city. Rat World is excited to platform a range of critical writing on the events from the year’s festival.

“thank you for giving me meaning” 

- Audrey Baldwin

What could be more poetic
than someone who wants your eyes to meet theirs, so badly

a river flows from my shoulders, like jagged rocks
to the mould growing between our feet
my lips are like fish out of water, my hands like corrugated iron
cracking and softening as the weather warms

we’re trees thick with summer air, dancing as our leaves weaken

caress my skin 
like the wind brushes the ocean 
like lips on fallen fruit
like someone who wants another
so completely

cause the way you look at your body will make me look at mine differently 
to HELL with vacant stares 
of self destruction
i'm a meal, a whole feast for the senses 
i'm as bright as the sun baby 

/

they swarm you like ants to honey 
tasting your sweet candour 
but i can still feel your hands on me
like
dirt after rain

look at my brand new body!!
i’m sheathed in symbolism 
but still suffocated with impermanence
like phlegm i can’t cough up

in this damp silence 
i second-guess everything 
before a sinkhole forms in my chest
swallowing all those youthful promises

i wish we weren't so afraid of talking
but we'll keep leaving each other hanging 
until the radio waves are dead
until the urge to say i love you builds like a star 
and we explode forever 
a million tiny little deaths 

my hair trails down to a pool 
at the base of my neck
like tangled seaweed
what if i chop it off 
what if i chop it all off 
what if i rid myself of everything 

will you i want me 

/

i'll take a picture, so people will know
i once looked this (fucking) hot,
maybe it’ll mean something;
maybe i will mean something
(probably not)

i'd like to think i'm an independent person 
but that's a lie
i'm scared of being alone
(everyone is)

peel back the layers of my skin, with your sandpaper fingers and 
wash away my vulnerability like it means 
nothing 

water runs down your chin
to the ocean groaning in my stomach 
leaving me raw
so close but yet sooooooo                                      far
we’re parched from too much time
alone 

ships could sail over the blue of your eyes, that colour my days like the weather
but my lungs are filling with water and
i can't even manage a word

thick blood and taut skin are said to be auspicious, but they turn to ash beneath the magma of my
duvet 

i'll probably regret being so scared of attachment, 
but how do i love 
when loving 
                     withers 
                                    at 
                                         my 
                                                 feet 

/

tender skin is ephemeral

i hope i don't waste it

■

Chris Girven lives in Te Whanganui-a-Tara with their whānau and studies at Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington. In addition to writing poetry, Chris loves to sing and dance in their room, dress up (wigs included), go to the Vinnie's (weekly), spend time with loved ones, and frolic about in life's whimsy. 

This piece was commissioned by Performance Art week Aotearoa with support from Wellington City Council, and was curated and edited by Sasha Francis. Click here to check out more about the 2023 Festival.