As part of a larger project, these twelve prose poems written in Dutch document an intimate collaboration between myself and philosopher Bibi Straatman, with who I closely read several texts from the Christian mystical tradition, in particular those of Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582) and how her exploration of privacy has much to offer to us today, in an age in which it is becoming more and more difficult for us to explore the vast breadth of interiorities that we hold within ourselves and among each other. That is why the poems are devoted to people in my life who have enabled me to retreat, and reconsider alternative privacies in a manner that does not exclude the political tremors that condition our everyday.
