‘Surgery is the starting point, but salvation is not in the surgeon’s scalpel’
In her monthly column, P. Eldridge drags us into the aftermath of surgery in Paris: swollen, stitched, roses rotting in a turquoise vase, a lover’s hands washing her hair as she breaks. What survives when the body is torn open? Love, or nothing at all.
Words by P. Eldridge
There are roses in a turquoise vase across from me on the floor, opposite side of the bed. Six of them, red, thorns still intact, water already turning cloudy with that faint green rot smell of cut stems gasping. The vase is painted with cherry blossoms, willow trees, figures swirling in celebratory dance, the kind of image that feels centuries old and too alive all at once. The bed is a mattress directly on the ground, no frame, no elevation, just pressed into the floor of a tiny flat. I am in Paris. I am eight days post facial feminisation surgery and I feel like the size of a house, a cathedral swelling in slow motion.