Flannery O’kafka

I am always saying that I started life as a small town scandal,
but I can’t say this out loud to everyone.
These words can kick.
They might step on those who are already down and laid low.

So I keep my tongue planted firmly in my cheek and
wait for some of the stars of the show to die.
Then one day, I can maybe say everything
instead of saying some things.
[Because I can’t just say (write) anything.]

In the meantime, I make images.
I make people.I make the world.
I put these people into my almost history and imagine terrible things
and I imagine holy things.
We play at stigmata,
I chase birth and blood and hands.
I take snapshots of my own hands reaching into the sufferings of Christ
or holding pink cigarettes.
I make portraits because I cannot make anything else,
and because my eyes cannot always see everything that is happening.

Flannery O’kafka lives with her husband and four out of five children in Scotland where she studies Fine Art Photography at the Glasgow School of Art.

Facebook: facebook.com/flannery.okafka

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