[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-153309-en":3,"doc-seo-153309-105":29,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":83},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":11,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":11,"is_downloadable":11,"audit_status":11,"page_count":20,"language":21,"language_code":22,"site_id":23,"html_lang":22,"table_of_contents":24,"faqs":25,"seo_title":26,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":27,"read_time":28},153309,687207020761,"Oliver Hayes","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_155a257f0dc6eb9ab79c44ca47cae57d",1,"Story & Novel","Lipstick Traces - Maisie Mattia - from Petals","A lyrical, surreal narrative centers on a speaker’s love for lipstick and the fear of being “anything at all,” using recurring images of butterflies, caves, and a typewriter as gateways to authorship. The text frames language—especially the alphabet—as both forbidden and mystical, with a devil-like figure linked to spring, caves, roots, and the sweetness of buried fruits. Love is portrayed as a paradox: it keeps the speaker alive yet leaves them unable to fully explain or translate what they feel.","Lipstick Traces Maisie Mattia  \nfrom Petals (2015)  \nIt’s just that every time I loved lipstick my stomach ached and the only way to make it stop aching was prove that boys did not love lipstick, and so because I was a boy I did not love lipstick either. But all of a sudden I would love lipstick and because no one told me I could love lipstick, I thought that meant I could not love lipstick, and the more I loved it, the more I would die. I thought that the day I surrendered to that love was the day I would no longer be anything at all—I would not even be a butterfly. And butterflies barely exist. Butterflies are the residue of our dreams.  \nI need them to show me the way to the dark heavens. The heavens that are beneath our feet. It was by following butterflies that I became an author.‘Butterflies’ are what I called the angels, falling in the distance. They led me into a cave, where I found a typewriter; they told me to sit before the typewriter and tell it my story. The typewriter listened, dim and glistening. Then it offered me the alphabet. Our vital riddle. Without it we do not even know our own names.  \nI want to say thank you to the devil, because the devil has the dark power of caves and roots and the devil is the princess of spring. The devil ripens fruits deep within the earth and offers it to us in sweetness. The devil invented the alphabet. But god forbids the alphabet in the kingdom of heaven. God has no language.  \nI have always wanted simple things, but the world told me I could not be simple and also love lipstick, I had to choose. So I renounced simple things, and because I  \nrenounced simple things I never learned that sometimesit is okay to be simple. And now I don’t know how to tell a story, or how to buy fruits and vegetables at the market, or how to love you. But I am sentimental, when it comes down to it I am sentimental, and not intelligent, I don’t understand riddles, I can never figure them out…  \nPerhaps if I write what the angels ask me to write, if I distribute their epistles, one day they will tell me why I loved you? But to explain my love does not require that I understand the explanation. So when I tell my story, then you will know why I loved you, but still I will not know. Just as I can write a book about life and still not know what life is. But when you read it you will say: ah, so that’s it. Because my vision was given to me in scraps, and so I wrote it in scraps. But it was given to you like a pebble is given, orthe dawn. It was given to you like the gust ofa great wing. All at once.  \nBut my grace is this: when I do not know why I love you, then I know I am alive. There is no way out except in, so I amble through dark forests and into caves, where in the endless dark I hear the waterfalls sparkling over rocks into a further, fathomless night. I abdicate the light of day for the alphabet and the sweetness of the good devil. The devil does not steal our souls, he just shows us how to type on the typewriter, and relieve our souls from the burden of their solitude. But god is a propagandist who told his angels to tell us that the devil steals souls, and that he steals them with the twenty six mystical letters of the alphabet. So I sit before the typewriter in the dark, and in the endless recital of my fingers upon the keys I am angry at you for loving me, I wanted to hurt you for loving me because you looked at me and did not look away and I was frightened that  \nwhen you looked at me you would see how I shimmer and if you looked close you would see that I only shimmer at the beginning and soon the shimmering fades and beneath the shimmering is what I do not give words to. And all the petals I crushed to make perfume, I am drunk on my perfumes but only when I am alone and in front of the typewriter. They sicken me because my beauty has brought me nothing and nonetheless I crush and crush, I crush up all the flowers I love and admire, and maybe when there is nothing left I will be loved, and i","cbCaigb88AEhqwHt","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaigb88AEhqwHt","pdf",129268,16,"English","en",105,"# Lipstick Traces - Maisie Mattia\n## From Petals (2015)\n## From Estrogen (2018)","[{\"question\":\"How is the alphabet treated in relation to religion and forbidden knowledge?\",\"answer\":\"The devil is credited with inventing the alphabet, while god forbids it in heaven, presenting language as sacred, mystical, and contested. This tension drives the speaker’s dark, compulsive recital as they type in uncertainty and longing.\"}]","Lipstick Traces - Maisie Mattia - from Petals | PDF",1787873762,25,{"code":4,"msg":30,"data":31},"ok",{"site_id":23,"language":22,"slug":32,"title":13,"keywords":33,"description":14,"schema_data":34,"social_meta":78,"head_meta":80,"extra_data":82,"updated_unix":27},"lipstick-traces-maisie-mattia-from-petals","",{"@graph":35,"@context":77},[36,53,68],{"@type":37,"itemListElement":38},"BreadcrumbList",[39,43,47,50],{"item":40,"name":41,"@type":42,"position":11},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":44,"name":45,"@type":42,"position":46},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":48,"name":12,"@type":42,"position":49},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/story-novel/",3,{"item":51,"name":13,"@type":42,"position":52},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/lipstick-traces-maisie-mattia-from-petals/153309/",4,{"url":51,"name":13,"@type":54,"author":55,"headline":13,"publisher":57,"fileFormat":60,"inLanguage":22,"description":14,"dateModified":61,"datePublished":62,"encodingFormat":60,"isAccessibleForFree":63,"interactionStatistic":64},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":56},"Person",{"url":40,"name":58,"@type":59},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-09-04","2026-08-27",true,{"@type":65,"interactionType":66,"userInteractionCount":11},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":67},"ViewAction",{"@type":69,"mainEntity":70},"FAQPage",[71],{"name":72,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":74},"How is the alphabet treated in relation to religion and forbidden knowledge?","Question",{"text":75,"@type":76},"The devil is credited with inventing the alphabet, while god forbids it in heaven, presenting language as sacred, mystical, and contested. This tension drives the speaker’s dark, compulsive recital as they type in uncertainty and longing.","Answer","https://schema.org",{"og:url":51,"og:type":79,"og:title":13,"og:site_name":58,"og:description":14},"article",{"robots":81,"canonical":51},"index,follow",{"doc_id":7,"site_id":23},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":84},[85,88,92,96,101,106,111,116,121,124,128],{"id":11,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":12,"show_sort_weight":86,"slug":87},90,"story-novel",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":89,"show_sort_weight":90,"slug":91},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":93,"show_sort_weight":94,"slug":95},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":97,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":98,"show_sort_weight":99,"slug":100},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":102,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":103,"show_sort_weight":104,"slug":105},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":107,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":108,"show_sort_weight":109,"slug":110},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":112,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":113,"show_sort_weight":114,"slug":115},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":117,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":118,"show_sort_weight":119,"slug":120},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":119,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":122,"show_sort_weight":119,"slug":123},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":125,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":126,"show_sort_weight":125,"slug":127},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":129,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":130,"show_sort_weight":97,"slug":131},19,"General","general"]