Written by Sumitra Singam
He says, “Art is in the eye of the beholder.”
I say, “So you want to behold a naked fourteen-year-old Javanese girl whom he bought as a
sex slave?”
And he says, “Harsh.”
I think of words like “Primitivism” and how he (Gauguin) wanted to live it, he didn’t want to
experience it second hand. I imagine his penis used as a brush to dip into unbreached
inkwells. I imagine him withdrawing it to drip directly onto the canvas.
My brother says, “I know why this is important to you,” and, “I believe your trauma
narrative.”
I think about the girl whose naked body is pinned to a wall for generations of men to enjoy.
And my brother says, “We cannot judge by today’s standards.”
I think of her. Fourteen. Fourteen. And which standard she would have wanted us to use, and
I am speechless with rage. I am as pinned to the wall as she is.
My brother waits and waits, his eyes patient and kind. And he says, “I’m sorry, I believe
you.” My brother doesn’t want to hurt me.
I am not the one who needs to be believed. I am not the one who has been hurt.
.
Sumitra Singam is a Malaysian-Indian-Australian coconut who writes in Naarm/Melbourne. She travelled through many spaces, both beautiful and traumatic to get there and writes to make sense of her experiences. Her work has been published widely, nominated for a number of Best Of anthologies, and was selected for Best Microfictions 2024. She works as a psychiatrist and trauma therapist and runs workshops on how to write trauma safely, and the Yeah Nah reading series. She’ll be the one in the kitchen making chai (where’s your cardamom?). You can find her and her other publication credits on Bluesky: @pleomorphic2 & sumitrasingam.squarespace.com