23RD MAR 2020
Rust rings
And bits of it
Sprinkled on seams
Of tin
Acrylic
Sounds hard
But it’s stretched so fine
That it’s soft,
Little curly strands
Smaller than a hair
Twisted together
Two knots
Two holes
Two points
And a line
That bounces
Rays
Bringing muffled waves of sound
22ND MAR 2020
Whirling
Swirling
Undulating
Mass
22ND MAR 2020
We’ve really rounded out
As people
The ones who exist
Starkly
In each other’s lives
Think
Crisp fucking edges
On a dark silhouette
Kind of existence
From
Hazy clouds of people
To
Rocks, basically
Boulders
21ST MAR 2020
This windy ass day
A writhing mass
I assume
Arms out
Shining with mucous
Up and back
Leaning forward
Amongst riley appendages
Precariously into the air
And dirt
I imagine them
Tangled, pulling at one another
Until impossibly stuck
Or one of them breaks
Flying
A welcome horror
20TH MAR 2020
Massive exchanges. Speak as in whisper. Water, genitals, minds, the exchange of blood.
20TH MAR 2020
Scream
As in whisper
Porous
Like dry hair
A rustling
Ferns never look real to me
While they’re alive
But now that this one’s dead
It’s like her leaves went from plastic
To husk, not breathing
But more real than before
Closer to life
Yet drained of it
A rustling
Scream as in whisper
19TH MAR 2020
T H E Y
Across my left knuckles
The letters are scaly and fresh
I appreciate that you
Weren’t scared
To touch me
T pointer finger
Peeling down the middle
And knew what to do
With a silicone package
H middle finger
Still swollen
Along its upper right arm
You welcomed my breasts
As if they were male
E ring finger
Red an angry down its spine
You saw me
Through my long strands of hair
Y pinky finger
Thicker on
The left side of its face
And you warned me
That this would be rough
18TH MAR 2020
Wood stain drips
Strewn across a Table
That would be white
Two scratches in an X
Another that’s growing
Old blood rust
Rorschach dirt
A double ring of coffee
With wandering icicle streams
Now dried up
Sometimes this table
Is like a lake
That comes and goes
With the rain
Just like those who use it
17TH MAR 2020
Beams of light bounce off cars at two points
Above the windshield
by their bumpers
And hit me in the eyes
The light illuminates
Little parallel smudge lines
Across the window
I take these notes of my surroundings
So my brain can shut up about you
There’s what appears to be a woman
With what appears to be a large box
Sitting four rows ahead of me
Their hair is shades of salmon
Roots showing
The box one shade of cardboard brown
Across the bus one of the strands of light
Skitters along where adds normally intrude
To my right and out the window
A woman is on a cigarette break
To my left I notice little bubbles
Between the almost warp like smudges
They give away that this window is layered
Just like this moment
I can attempt to wander all I want
But this bus has a route
And you still exist beneath all these observations
Rust rings
And bits of it
Sprinkled on seams
Of tin
Acrylic
Sounds hard
But it’s stretched so fine
That it’s soft,
Little curly strands
Smaller than a hair
Twisted together
Two knots
Two holes
Two points
And a line
That bounces
Rays
Bringing muffled waves of sound
22ND MAR 2020
Whirling
Swirling
Undulating
Mass
22ND MAR 2020
We’ve really rounded out
As people
The ones who exist
Starkly
In each other’s lives
Think
Crisp fucking edges
On a dark silhouette
Kind of existence
From
Hazy clouds of people
To
Rocks, basically
Boulders
21ST MAR 2020
This windy ass day
A writhing mass
I assume
Arms out
Shining with mucous
Up and back
Leaning forward
Amongst riley appendages
Precariously into the air
And dirt
I imagine them
Tangled, pulling at one another
Until impossibly stuck
Or one of them breaks
Flying
A welcome horror
20TH MAR 2020
Massive exchanges. Speak as in whisper. Water, genitals, minds, the exchange of blood.
20TH MAR 2020
Scream
As in whisper
Porous
Like dry hair
A rustling
Ferns never look real to me
While they’re alive
But now that this one’s dead
It’s like her leaves went from plastic
To husk, not breathing
But more real than before
Closer to life
Yet drained of it
A rustling
Scream as in whisper
19TH MAR 2020
T H E Y
Across my left knuckles
The letters are scaly and fresh
I appreciate that you
Weren’t scared
To touch me
T pointer finger
Peeling down the middle
And knew what to do
With a silicone package
H middle finger
Still swollen
Along its upper right arm
You welcomed my breasts
As if they were male
E ring finger
Red an angry down its spine
You saw me
Through my long strands of hair
Y pinky finger
Thicker on
The left side of its face
And you warned me
That this would be rough
18TH MAR 2020
Wood stain drips
Strewn across a Table
That would be white
Two scratches in an X
Another that’s growing
Old blood rust
Rorschach dirt
A double ring of coffee
With wandering icicle streams
Now dried up
Sometimes this table
Is like a lake
That comes and goes
With the rain
Just like those who use it
17TH MAR 2020
Beams of light bounce off cars at two points
Above the windshield
by their bumpers
And hit me in the eyes
The light illuminates
Little parallel smudge lines
Across the window
I take these notes of my surroundings
So my brain can shut up about you
There’s what appears to be a woman
With what appears to be a large box
Sitting four rows ahead of me
Their hair is shades of salmon
Roots showing
The box one shade of cardboard brown
Across the bus one of the strands of light
Skitters along where adds normally intrude
To my right and out the window
A woman is on a cigarette break
To my left I notice little bubbles
Between the almost warp like smudges
They give away that this window is layered
Just like this moment
I can attempt to wander all I want
But this bus has a route
And you still exist beneath all these observations
A fishnet like tunnel filled with oranges laid open, painted to look like flesh, suspended by threads; a 2D stock image of a red wig following the face of a person singing, framing it; a length of electrical cord tied to a piece of felt pulled from an opaque white liquid in a bathtub; a block of clay tied to a tree with pink cord being punched, pieces of it fall to the ground.
These illustrative snippets describe various material moments which occur in different performative works of mine. My work articulates hard to put into words emotions, feelings or sensations, which create a glimpse of what I call PTSD-brain. I want it to impart an impression of the feelings of post-trauma, which make up PTSD-brain. Many trauma feelings translate better to grunts or violent arm movements or the tension of thread wrapped very tightly around something rather than to something systematic like language. The objects in my work dictate the emotional actions of my performances. These actions, in turn, make narratives, understanding and making sense out of them is not important, what's important is that they are being told.
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