Border109;Thick Border13;

/ thick border¹³ is an endless sentence repeat the

endless repetition of these words that transform into language¹⁰

transform into border¹⁰⁹

transform into bodies with varied levels of visibility¹²

transform into a hole the shape of word count transform into a hole

into borders inside which my tongue fails

into words I fail / bodies²⁴ failed, border /-ed/ inside the

border /-s/ of my tongue lies

what lies on the bare back of bodies transformed peripheral⁵⁰

transformed desire and derision border /-ing/ transformed into bodies other (-ed)
into failure to contain range from banks

exclusion to contain this border to bodies

of bodies /

those sites and this enforcement of border regimes thickens

of others / transformed into language into periphery into

exclusion into power into positioning into bodies in

to this endless repetition of my tongue of

margins²¹ / now periphery is the centre

now the peripheralization of bodies that become the centre now an

other⁴⁶ /-ing/ those margins of

visibility in the centre my word

count count a repeated othering

/ count bodies perform /-ed/ other /-ed/

repeated the border /-ing/ thickens

/ count this failure to contain this

exclusion²² of bodies other /-ed/ this

exclusionary failure

thicken /-s/ the border through

marginalisation / limbo⁷ means

border inside the borders of
my tongue of margins

other /-ed/

these bodies excluded range from banks

repeated borders to repeated through bodies othered to bodies this

border /-ing/ in limbo this thick border

visible repeated languag /-ed/

Notes:

109. Border109;Thick Border13; is a new text written in response to Pinelopi Gardika’s [the author’s] thesis, The border thickens: Reflections on the border from above and from within (London: Goldsmiths University of London, 2024). The thesis examines the impermeability of imperial borders that are inscribed onto the racialised bodies confronted with hostile border regimes.

13. The piece responds to the original text by scrutinising the language employed and identifying repetition as at once a semiotic failure and a semiotic tool. The numbers in superscript count the appearance of those words in the original text.