Years ago, the first Malena Stefano song I heard went like this: I'm not afraid of being fragile and vulnerable / All love is a sacrifice / All love is a precipice / It's dancing beneath our abysses. There are several words in Malena's voice that could be used as a summary, a motto, a guide to begin to understand the code of the gaze that she authorizes to be directed at her. Yes, in my humble identification, I believe that in our particular and complex femininities we have this in common: not just any type of look will reach here, to my heart, with impunity. Do you wish to look at me evilly? Do you wish to look at me with judgement? Do you want to look at me morally? Do you desire moralism and want to use me as a transportation tool to your goal? Well, you won't make it. The word "authorize", however, in this context, bothers me. That's not quite the word, if authorization comes from authority. This is something else here. An integrity that scares away cowards. An imperfection that scares away cowards. Painfully myself, as Malena decides to title her poem website.

There is much celebration about the avoidance of pain today. Security protocols that allow us not to bump into each other's feelings, to avoid the knot between us and the shadows inherent to humanity. It makes sense that we are charged with functionality and contentment as the central meaning of survival. Part of what is so beautiful about Malena Stefano's work, from her earliest songs to her latest album Impossible and the poems shared on Painfully Myself, is another mastery of true survival, which is the ability to feel your own heart and swallow it. Not everyone can shoulder such a task, unfortunately, but regardless of how the distribution of this kind of courage works, I believe that we bring out its survivors because there is something divine about it. Something accessible and inspiring about becoming who you are and not dying. It's like dying before you die; knowing the dose of a poison and how to use it so that pain and desire and dreams wash away everything that is not raw.

What seems very transcendental could become empty if there were no materiality of life. The connection with the spirit is made in everyday life, in rituals and even in what is futile, thank God. I invite the reader to enter this cardiac microcosm made of pomegranate seeds, full lips, ancient fountains and winged girls.

Amanda Devulsky is a filmmaker and writer from Brazil. Her practice exists around questions of imagetic surfaces and the politics of seeing and being seen.