I am carried on the back of my mother. Her hands feel like two small stones on my hips. Stones thick enough not to fall down. Tight enough that I feel like I can sit on them. She smells like love, her hair tickles me. My eyes are heavy now, my heart and my weight feel like they have fallen down from me and lie as a layer on my mom’s back. Her back is like a sea, I am floating. I want to sleep, but I also don’t want to. I want to walk with her for a while. I can’t see her eyes and her voice scatters in the void. But she is the closest she can be. 

For this series with my sister on my back, I was bowing and my hair disrupted my sight. She knew, although I didn’t tell her. My steps were getting slower. With very gentle hands, she fixed my hair, moving it away from my eyes.

– It was not only me taking care of you. We were too close to behave as individuals, there was no measurable space between us. 

I want to go for a walk again. I can feel your heart beating, it’s like having another heart on my back which I cannot touch but feel very presently there. My knees bending for you to climb up onto me, my hands placed firmly at my waist to hold you tight and your arms around my shoulders. 

Part of the note to the work “deine Arme um meine Schultern”, 2019