TROC, TRUC, TROYC, TRUCT, TRUT
By ALICE BOTELHO
March 2025, Hollows
This was originally written in French. Access it here
March 2025, Hollows
This was originally written in French. Access it here
The etymology of trou (eng. transl. Hole) likely comes from the Latin traucum. The word evolved through several forms—troc, truc, troyc, truct, trut—before becoming trou. Yet its origins remain uncertain; it may have also come from a Celtic or Germanic dialect.
From the beginning, trou has been elusive. With varied definitions, it signifies a cavity, an opening, a lack, a void. We guide words as we do our gaze. So, is the trou a space or an absence of matter? A transition or a non-place? Troc, truc, troyc, truct, trut. Here lies the richness of plurality—never fixed, neither in anything nor in nothing nor in everything nor in holes.
Traucum — sounds like trauma, too much, to trade, to trace, too-CUM… This space where life ceases to exist, this erasure of self. Where stuffed animals rot from the inside, where dark cavities turn fertile. The tragicomedy of life—being born from nothing, even from suffocating childhoods, filled with emptiness. Put on your masks.
Troc, truc, troyc, truct, trut. These bodies perforated by birth, by desire, by choice, by obligation, by imagination, by everything that shapes our humanity. The trou is a transition from one place to another, where desires are untamed and disobedient. The surveillance system hacked by the narrowness of this transitional passage. We do what we want in the/our holes.
Troc, truc, troyc, truct, trut. They are also pathways through which life begins and ends—traucum, to trade, to trace. Leaving belly buttons as traces. So we must take through the ass, the mouth, the vulva—it is in the holes that resistance and pleasure fist-bump. Vulvas can bite, and anuses can be gorged.
Troc, truc, troyc, truct, trut. It could be Lady Gaga lyrics.
From the beginning, trou has been elusive. With varied definitions, it signifies a cavity, an opening, a lack, a void. We guide words as we do our gaze. So, is the trou a space or an absence of matter? A transition or a non-place? Troc, truc, troyc, truct, trut. Here lies the richness of plurality—never fixed, neither in anything nor in nothing nor in everything nor in holes.
Traucum — sounds like trauma, too much, to trade, to trace, too-CUM… This space where life ceases to exist, this erasure of self. Where stuffed animals rot from the inside, where dark cavities turn fertile. The tragicomedy of life—being born from nothing, even from suffocating childhoods, filled with emptiness. Put on your masks.
Troc, truc, troyc, truct, trut. These bodies perforated by birth, by desire, by choice, by obligation, by imagination, by everything that shapes our humanity. The trou is a transition from one place to another, where desires are untamed and disobedient. The surveillance system hacked by the narrowness of this transitional passage. We do what we want in the/our holes.
Troc, truc, troyc, truct, trut. They are also pathways through which life begins and ends—traucum, to trade, to trace. Leaving belly buttons as traces. So we must take through the ass, the mouth, the vulva—it is in the holes that resistance and pleasure fist-bump. Vulvas can bite, and anuses can be gorged.
Troc, truc, troyc, truct, trut. It could be Lady Gaga lyrics.