A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of Alfred University
The Detritus of Our Lives by
Annie Ita
In partial fulfillment of the requirements for
the Alfred University Honors Program April 26, 2020
Under the Supervision of
Chair: Linda Sikora, Professor, Ceramics Committee Members:
Emrys Westacott, Professor, Philosophy Heather Yanda, Senior Lecturer, English
For my honors thesis I planned and executed a durational performance driven installation art piece. Since my art thesis show does not include a performative element, I wanted to do another well planned performance before I left Alfred University. I had had this idea of spending a long time in a room and writing on the walls as an art piece swirling around in my head for a year or so, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to execute it. I went about setting parameters for myself to follow to give the piece structure. I find that with performance art, concept is best communicated not through setting out to perform a specific action, like one might in a play or dance piece, but by living authentically by a set of rules for a planned amount of time.
For the duration of the piece, I wanted to do something for as long as possible without interrupting my studies. This meant beginning early on a Friday and ending late on a Sunday. I needed a location in which I could write on the walls, which left a very short list of art related buildings: Harder Hall, Binns-Merrill, Cohen Studio, and the Brick basement. The latter two buildings are for foundations students, and I didn’t want to encroach on the space of first years. I initially would have preferred a more public location in Harder Hall, namely The Turner Gallery, to enhance the performative element of the piece. Performance art, by definition, is somewhat voyeuristic, and increasing viewer access to a piece can highlight the overall importance of the work, and the imbalanced relationship of a collective to an individual. However, my show proposal was rejected from Turner, I suspect for its unconventional nature, which I had expected might happen. I arranged to do the performance in one of the Sculptural and Dimensional Studies gallery spaces in Binns-Merrill. Since The Cell gallery space was under asbestos-related
construction, and The Box is quite small so I picked The Cube. This room is relatively spacious, near a central stairwell, and has a lot of natural light, which ended up being valuable for the sake
of my mental comfort. In the end, I’m glad I had the privacy The Cube provided, and was not in a room with a wall of windows facing the outside, like in The Turner.
Next, I wanted to set up parameters for the piece to make it effective as a performance and self-exploration beyond the final artistic product. I knew from the get go one of the parameters would be no digital technology. Though I’m loath to write without the help of an online dictionary, I knew my phone or laptop would only distract me. I wanted writing to be my only option for passing the time. With this restraint, I would be forced to write even if I was feeling uninspired. For this reason, I also didn’t take any books, sketchbooks, or other sources of entertainment in with me. I wanted only the essentials. The essentials being: a change clothes, two days’ worth of non-perishable foods, a blanket, and my wallet, just in case. I also needed supplies for the performance itself: a notebook, pencils, erasers, and a pencil sharpener.
This work was inspired by 1970s feminist performance art and modern installation art.
My own performance pieces have been inspired by artists like Marina Abramovic, Carolee Schneeman, and Yoko Ono since learning about them. Though this piece was not about feminism specifically, I admire and seek to replicate the raw honest expression of identity that these artists achieved in their work. For this piece I was especially inspired by Schneeman’s 1973 piece Up to and Including Her Limits. In this work Schneeman suspended herself upside down, nude, by rope and drew along the paper-covered walls in big sweeping gestures as she swung to and fro. This piece didn’t interest me from a conceptual standpoint, because
Schneeman was reacting specifically to abstract expressionist paintings. Rather, what I borrowed was mark making in the context of durational performances, that art can be both the action and the residue of the action at once. In terms of installation art, I was looking at the work of Yayoi Kusama. Kusama is best known for her intricately layered infinity rooms which create the
illusion of never ending space through patterns and reflections. I wanted my writing on the wall to take into consideration the contents of the words, but also words as physical decoration.
Kusama’s installations are impactful, not because of a complex design, but because of scale. Her patterns usually consist of little more than poka dots, but when multiplied these simple patterns envelope and overwhelm the viewer. By covering an entire wall, I wanted to achieve this sense of overpowering scale. This decision was aesthetic, but also conceptual. I often find myself drowning in my own words. I experience creative writing as a kind of self care, as opposed to self expression: something that I do in order to take care of myself, not necessarily because it is something I enjoy doing. Writing is a kind of sweeping of the inside of my brain, I do not have to like the results, but the old must be expulsed in order for new dust to settle. I thought a
completely covered surface would express this, the way the whole inner surface of my mind is coated in words.
In terms of literary influence, I am inspired in style and subject matter by philosophy and poetry. I’m drawn to the aphoristic style of philosophers like Nietzsche and Schopenhauer because of their ability to articulate and communicate complex ideas in a quick, jargon free way.
In addition, I like collections of aphorisms because they each stand alone as written pieces, but are understood to be part of a larger cohesive whole. My hope for this piece was to create writing in this style, short self contained pieces, that together flow as one voice. As for subject matter I draw from the confessional style of contemporary poetry, particularly authors like Sharon Olds, Brenna Twohy, and Derrick Austin. I like that these authors don’t shy away from extremely personal or even taboo subject matter like familial and romantic relationships, as well as trauma and mental illness. I think of the writing that I did in this work as similar to poetry in that it is
something I did entirely for myself, but that becomes real and fully formed by being observed and consumed by other people.
The final influence I’d like to cite for this piece is my own past work. Last year, I did a very similar installation in Diane Cox’s Material Poetics in Dimensions class. For this piece, I wrote on the walls of The Box intermittently from Monday to Wednesday, culminating in a performance on Thursday. I was on a very tight time frame because of SDS gallery reservation policy, and my critique on Thursday. Because of this, I was only able to cover the top portion of the already small room, and never achieved the overwhelming aesthetic of being totally
surrounded by words. In addition, the performance, while remaining the most challenging and rewarding piece I’ve done to date, was somewhat unrelated to the installation. During the performance inside the installation I spoke non-stop stream of conscious prose with my eyes closed for an hour and a half as people watched. I wanted to spend more time with this piece and I wanted the performative element to relate more to the durational discomfort of the piece, not a semi-unrelated performance that took place inside the installation. I wanted to keep the writing style of multiple, short, stream of consciousness prose pieces, and the stylistic arrangement of the words on the walls from this previous work. I hoped to push myself to new creative places by limiting my actions for a set period of time with this new piece.
The title of the piece, The Detritus of Our Lives, was taken from a collection of quotes I keep in my notebook of overheard phrases that stick in my mind. This is something I heard someone say that resonated with me enough to write it down. I cycled through several other titles that I personally composed, but eventually settled on this one because it stuck in my mind for so long. Perhaps The Detritus of My Life, would be a more apt title, but I like the sound and meaning of the original quote better. I intended to document the piece with some in process
installation and de-installation, as well as a full documentation of every individual piece of writing on the wall. While I was able to get installation photos, and a full documentation of the final product, access to Harder Hall was restricted the Tuesday I was supposed to de-install due to COVID-19. As a result, I have no de-installation photos, and I was unable to measure the square footage of the wall, which I would have liked to do. I also transcribed the complete text on the walls, which is included in this paper unabridged. I contemplated only including portions of the text, or editing the whole thing into something more polished, but I think that would be dishonest. I can’t say I’m proud of all the writing I did. It is a daunting task to produce so much creative content in such a condensed time frame with very little external information, and I think this reflects in my writing. I feel it reads as superfluous at times, or downright poorly written, but that is the honest product of the medium and my own inexperience. If I had waited, and edited everything I wrote until it was in a state I was totally satisfied with, I would never have pushed myself to my creative limits from the need to fill space. By writing for volume, not quality, I had to write even when uninspired, which is valuable as it expands the bounds of where I thought my creative limits were. In addition, I needed to write an excessive amount to get a few lines that I really like. There are sections and fragments that I’m proud of, and I’ll probably adapt those into more fleshed out poems, but I had to write all of it get a few worthwhile parts.
In the body of this paper I will discuss the 60 hours that this piece spanned, from the time I entered the gallery to the time I left. I’ll go through what I did each day, and clarify anything I need to on the pieces of writing. I had no plan for the subject of my writings, but I have
retroactively sorted the pieces into those with only an ‘I’ subject and those with a ‘you’ subject. I felt like separating these because the ‘you’ is not a consistent subject throughout and I wanted to clarify who I’m talking to in some of these sections. In addition, all the writings with only an ‘I’
subject can be further divided into two categories: those inspired by my inner world and those inspired by my outer world. Those inspired by my inner world are personal and reflect on my past or my feelings. Those inspired by the external world are often also self-reflective, but are inspired by something I was experiencing physically. I think it is important to differentiate between the two because, although the subject matters are similar, I tended to write the ‘outer’
pieces only when I ran out of ‘inner’ material, which in turn would force me to take time and draw up new inner experiences to write about. This distinction is helpful because I can track how I was feeling based on which I was writing.
On Friday I arrived with all my belongings at Harder Hall at 10am and it took me an hour or so to get set up in the space. Since The Cube is a public and shared gallery I had to do a bit more cleaning than expected, but overall there wasn’t much delay between when I arrived and when I started writing. I did all the writing in a notebook first and then transferred in onto the wall. Although I would have liked to write stream of consciousness directly on the walls, it would have interrupted my flow of the writing process because it takes so long. Between the large font, balancing on a stool for the top half of the wall, and writing at extreme angles, the physical process of writing was much slower when working on the walls.
I began structuring the piece from up to down, rather than left to right. The first two chunks of text were placed in the upper right and upper left corners of the room. This is why the text on the wall appears in a much different order than the chronological arrangement I decided to go with in the transcription. I think one of the strongest elements of the piece is that it must be absorbed all at once, there is no clear beginning or end. Unfortunately, there is no way to
communicate this in an analogue form, and since this is an explanation of the time I spent in the piece, it’s practical for me to arrange the words in the order I wrote them in. I also numbered the sections of writing, an element not present on the walls, to make it easier to refer to a specific section.
The overall process, from composition to transcription of a single piece of writing, actually took a lot longer than I anticipated. Friday was the least productive day for me,
completing only the four sections of writing. This was due in part to the fact that Friday was the shortest day, but I also because spent some time napping (which I could do on the floor of the gallery) and staring out the windows. Of the four writings I did Friday, I don’t think any warrant an explanation. Three can be sorted into the inward looking category, and one is addressed to a
‘you.’ I did not yet have the need for external inspiration, which is why I have no outer pieces from the first day.
On Saturday I began to respond more to external stimuli, which can be seen in passages 6 and 7. It was also around this time on Saturday morning that I realized I would need to leave and buy more pencils based on the rate I was going through them. I left the gallery for the first time to go to the campus bookstore to get more, but it was closed for the whole weekend. I had
scheduled a friend to come Saturday to take some in progress photos and they agreed to drive me to Hornell to buy some new pencils. This paid off on Sunday night when I did indeed run out of the original 8 pencils I had purchased. While this was regrettable, as it violated the parameters I set for the performance, it did not subtract all that much time from my day. Saturday was difficult because it was such a long day. I found myself feeling cooped up, craving interaction and downtime, and growing tired of writing.
I wrote and transcribed 16 pieces Saturday (5-19), and composed the following four pieces of writing (19-22) that I would transcribe on Sunday. There are a number of other
eternally inspired pieces, and pieces addressed to someone in this section because I was working until very late on Saturday night, and it’s easier to be inspired by the environment around me and by thinking of people I love. I think most of those with a ‘you’ subject don’t require an
explanation, so long as you keep in mind that they are about different subjects, except 10 and 18 which are about the same person. In addition, 11 and 12, both addressed to a ‘you’ are not about a specific subject, more a generic mashup of ‘you’ subjects to project my past issues onto. I’d also like to clarify 13, because it looks strange written out in this form, but this is the point where I realized I can put blocks of text totally upside down by turning my body. This may seem like an
insignificant or obvious discovery, but it hadn’t occurred to me before and it made formatting a lot easier.
I started Sunday by transcribing the work I had written the previous night. Over the course of the day I wrote and and transcribed twelve more pieces of writing, bringing the installation to a close when the wall was covered. I had a pretty good mix of inner and outer inspired works here, and I don’t think most of them need an explanation, but I’d like to talk a little about 31. When I scheduled this piece back in February I obviously had no idea that I would be working right when corona virus panic was at it’s height, but just before everything shut down. Even with my limited contact with the outside at this time, the panic was palpable.
Every conversation I happened to overhear in the hallways or when I went to the store was about the virus. I made a conscious choice not to write about corona in any of my pieces because I had been planning it a long time in advance before the virus became a concern, and it was nice to have one area of communication not infected with the panic. However, it would have felt disingenuous to totally ignore something at the forefront of my mind at the time. This is why I wrote and included passage 31, a piece of writing about my mother who passed away from cancer in 2018. This was meant to express my anxiety about the virus while also sticking to the personal, confessional writing style I was using for the rest of the piece.
I left the gallery for the final time at 9:30pm when the piece was completed. I transcribed and documented the whole thing the following day on Monday, and planned to deinstall on Tuesday. Unfortunately, the school was shut down Tuesday afternoon and I only got a couple square feet of erasing done in the morning before I was banned from coming back. I contacted the art department about the situation and they told me they would have someone paint over the wall for me once it was safe to do so. I’m disappointed that I was not able to carry out and
document this part of the process, but I think there is something fitting about this very personal piece living on in suspended isolation, just like the rest of us, after it was supposed to be painted over weeks ago.
“Detritus of Our Lives” Full Installation Text Transcription:
1 Firstly, I’d like to apologize for my messy handwriting and my many inevitable spelling errors.
Secondly, I’d like to apologize for everything else. Here I’d like to use someone else’s thoughts, to write lines and lines of poems that I’ve memorized instead of the ones I’ve yet to compose. I’d like to be honey on the bread of my page. Honey, or butter, or jam, something with the sun trapped inside, so bright it shines out in sweet rays of flavor or prose. Or perhaps the the
welcomed bitter taste of coffee, strong and warm and rooted in the flavor of the stable earth. Or the sharp kick of cinnamon, some zest in an otherwise dull existence. But I fear my words lack the experience necessary for proper seasoning, that my memories aren’t worthwhile, or else too
faded to see clearly. I fear that none of it will be connected to something greater, a purpose or at least a pattern, just the ramblings of a mad person with too much time on their hands.
2 I hope you never pay for the things you did because living with the guilt is worse.
3 It took my Nana a while to forget German. Objects went first, and then memories (dad forgot where he put his phone again.) Then she lost German, my mother’s name, mine and my sister’s faces. She can still read. Three days before my mother died she stood (just barely) by the door and asked to go outside. My father would tell me, after the fact, that this was a sign that she was ready to “go.” My sister is the only one who remembers to water the plants anymore, she is out of town, and they are dying.
4 I ask myself what is beautiful around me, an exercise in philosophy, sorry I mean self care.
What is beautiful? The way a leaf sunsets from stem to tip, yellow to red and every shade in between, the buzz of the street lights outside is beautiful and the hum of the heating vents, the breathing of a building alive with inhabitants and itself, the way we are all inhabited by ourselves and pieces of other people. Salt is beautiful and so is sugar, I haven’t made up my mind about the morality of indulgence, but flavor belongs in the realm of aesthetics, beyond the rational. I am beautiful, I think, on occasion, turning this way and that. Do I feel beautiful the way lamp posts at twilight are beautiful? Surely my beauty is tainted in my mind, in the mind of my mind’s eye always turned inward and outward at once, how do I see myself without seeing myself see me?
How do I indulge mindlessly where there are mirrors everywhere?
5 I miss the summer already and it hasn’t even arrived yet. We gained an extra hour of sunshine from daylight saving, but it never feels like enough. I don’t hate the night and I certainly don’t hate the rain, but short days make for short fuses. I’m trying to squeeze every ounce of happiness I can out of this life, but my hands hurt from the wringing, and I still don’t know what I’m staying alive for. I hate the days for being longer, and I hate myself for not enjoying them more.
Sometimes I miss people who are right in front of me.
6 I imagine the windows to be TV monitors, videos of nothing but blue skies and clouds set into the white wall of window frames. Clouds pass slowly, leaves change slowly, my bones begin to thaw from the cold. I follow the path of sunlight like a cat, shifting my chair across the room, and the hours pass around me.
7 I watch a lady bug crawl across the floor, I let it creep close to me, then move it to the
windowsill on the end of my pencil so I don’t accidentally crush it. A few days ago I watched a ladybug creep up my bedroom wall, it wasn’t bothering me but I blue on it so it would land on the floor. It landed in a spider’s web and I watched as it was devoured. I can’t stop thinking about it. I want to let go of the things that no longer serve me, bad habits and bug induced existential dread. My fear of the future and cigarettes and procrastination. I want to let go of everything but the memories. I want to see it all again without experiencing it, from the outside looking in. I’m so tired. Tired of finding the next thing to do, the next thing to laugh at, the next spot of ground the crawl across in search of safety.
8 In my dream house there are twelve closets. I organize my clothes by category, I have a whole closet of velvet and a whole closet of lace. And when it takes my fancy I reorganize everything by color. A whole closet of black jeans and chokers, black tights, black coats, and a different one for red satin gloves, red dresses, red lipstick, red shoes, and a whole closet of sea foam blue skirts. In my dreams I don’t procrastinate making doctor’s appointments, I should take more care of my body, it is my most finite resource. In my dreams I don’t need love, but I have it anyways.
You are still there, but in my dreams, it is easier to let you go.
9 I saw the whole world as a giant book with all of human history, past and futures, written out on the pages. At the crux of the book where pages meet spine was an open screaming mouth, emitting sound as the pages were turned. In all the history we had experienced so far we were still only turning the first page. Time stretched on for chapters and chapters ahead and always someone was screaming, Screams of pain, screams of the birthing and those being born, screams of the tortured and the grieving. The only constant for all of humanity was one long scream Pages flip and we all take our turn at the crux, screaming out our pain. Now it is my turn.
10 Where do you find that sunshine you store in you smile? I have seen the inside of you mind and I know you have mechanisms just like mine, the kind that worm into your psyche and ask where all of this is going, what it’s all building towards. How do you silence them? Do you make faces at yourself in the mirror like me, like I used to as a child? Do you feel lonely when you look at me because I have the face of someone you used to see in reflections? Are you happy?
I’m sorry for asking that, I know how it goes, most things are fleeting except the anger. Will you
meet me in the afterlife, when all this pretending is over? I’ll be the one shouting into the void, trying to find comfort in my own echo. You’ll know me because I’ll look just like you.
11 I have never let go of something I once loved, I leave claw marks in everything. I’m coming back for the earrings I left on your nightstand. My heart is a balloon that will never pop, my love is more boundless than the sky and deeper than the ocean. If you would like you are welcome inside there’s always room for more, but blood leaves stains that I still don’t know how to remove. Remember me when you leave because I will be looking back at you through our
collective memories, asking where I went wrong. The past is perfect because we are happy there.
12 I am homesick for a home that doesn’t exist anymore. I am in love with the person I used to think you were. I’m nostalgic for a time when I was happy, but I can’t remember when that was.
13 And that’s when I realized I can write upside down. Why didn’t I think of this sooner? This is how I used to write song lyrics in my notebook when I was bored in class.
14 I love this concrete floor. The paint scars and scuff marks, the tape residue, the stories they tell, I love this floor for supporting my weight when I can’t reach the earth, for letting me float two stories up while staying rooted to the ground. The cool surface might be nicer in the summer’s heat but cold ground against the side of my face is always welcome for the sake of sanity.
15 Your eyes are bigger than your stomach, or maybe your heart is just bigger than your hands.
You dream when you should be sleeping, and sleep when you should be learning, but you learn so quickly from anyone you can. You want it all and you won’t be satisfied with happiness, you want the pain and the sadness, because you revel in living. I know you would go back if you could, and do it all differently, that you scrabble at the locked box of your memories like a rat in a cage. You would cut out the guilt if you could and plant lavender and mint in the wounds left behind, but since you’re here take my hand, won’t you show me all the things that keep you alive in spite of it all.
16 You’ve got something to say and we both know it, so come out with it, sometimes you have to give up the upper hand. Always asking questions so you don’t have to answer them. What are you trying to drown out when you listen to music? How long have your thoughts been haunting you and how far will you go try to escape them? Which do you miss more, the company or the solitude? How do you live with the unanswerable questions?
17 I’m glad this building is so alive with people even this late at night. I’d go crazy if I was totally alone. Voices filtering down the hallways, the scent of apple cider that indicates
ceramicists have been busy keeping clay from drying out. This room has been the site of so many artworks, so much has been completed inside these walls. The white paint has been over taken by orange peeling spackle marks. Areas that were never sanded or painted over so they burrow texture into the walls like termites. Well used and well loved. How much caffeine has been consumed in this space? How many hours have been spent here that should have been spent
sleeping? My time spent will reverberate and echo through out this room too after I leave. My words will live forever under layers of paint, and spackle, and nails, and art.
18 Your luck is rotten but your outlook is positive. What do you do with the broken expectations and promises? Nobody sees the expression you wear when you’re alone, is is one of
disappointment? I’d like to believe that it’s not, that you take your smile with you into isolation, but you’ve got to keep the damage somewhere. Do you know that your artwork is bleeding? You betray yourself when your mind goes quite and you let your hands talk. Can you tell me the line between expression and a cry for help? I’m not yet fluent in the language of your pain.
19 My hand has split open and is bleeding all over the wall I’m writing on, it doesn’t hurt too bad, but I wish the metaphor weren’t so blunt.
20 I used to have this reoccurring dream as a child. I saw blank white walls twisting and turning leading no where. Children walked in endless lines through the hallways wearing all white clothing. They had small slips of paper covering their eyes. In the corners of the passages were paper treasure chests, boasting medallions and jewels and crowns made of pristine white paper.
The children would walk on forever and eventually I would wake up.
21 If you break my heart I’ll burn everything you leave behind, but I’ll regret it. I’ll cry till my head aches. I’ll believe I can never recover but I will. If you left me today I would never forget you, if you die first I’ll never forgive you. If you break my heart, I’ll fill sketchbooks and
galleries with my hurt, you should’ve thought twice about loving an artist. I would miss your coffee, and all the other things too vast to name. If I break your heart I’m sorry.
22 I love the way a stool looks when it’s flipped upside down, how it reaches up like a beetle that’s been flipped on its back. I’d like to balance a gigantic bouquet on the inside ring, Simple objects become sculptures when rotated. I want a whole room of upside down stools I want a standing car with upside down stools covering the counter and tables. Beauty begins with the impractical. If I could I’s paint a while forest of stools all reaching their four legs to the sky but I have more of a knack for readymades.
23 What would you say if you were here with me? Something off topic probably, then you’d sip your too sweet coffee. If you were here you’d tell me to put my shoes on. I’d say I wish I had a cigarette and you’d reprimand me for that too. I like how you walk fast and live slow. One day you’ll need to learn to chose the things you want, but for now let’s take the scenic route home, you can lead me as far as you want off the beaten path I promise to wear my shoes.
24 My heart is full of dandelion wishes that disappear at the slightest wind. I’m paralyzed by options, so I remain rooted in place, standing still in indecision.
25 Green is my favorite color. I love the way I can be totally surrounded by it and not feel overwhelmed. Green trees, green grass, green moss covered rocks, a peaceful environment, I couldn’t be so surrounded by any other color. Red is too oppressive, yellow too nauseating and orange is just plain garish. Blue is pleasant enough, but seems to encroach into a space,
especially at night, Pink wears too much on the lungs, if I were surrounded by pink I fear I would choke. Purple is a humorous color and has no place beyond poetry and symbolism, and black is too clique.
26 I spend most of my time eliminating negative spaces. Doodling spiraling patterns in
sketchbooks, filling the white lines of notebook pages, or writing on the walls. I’ve worked my pencils dull and my fingers numb, I hope it all loses meaning as the words become wallpaper. I hope it always looks as if you’re standing far away. I hope the remaining negative space
swallows up my work before anyone can see it. I’m proud of what I’ve done, but not the contents.
27 The waffle cone of the window panes bisects the adjacent building in perfect mathematical harmony, or that’s what it looks like to the human eye. Maybe I’m just easily fooled. I love a good card trick. I love turning coincidences into superstitions. I think its important to find magic in ordinary things, like measuring the perfect amount of flour on the first try, or running into someone you’ve been thinking about all day. I don’t believe in the supernatural because the natural world is much more strange and fantastical.
28 Will you leave the kitchen light on for me? I’ll be up to bed after I’ve had a cup of tea, I’ll miss you as I watch the ceramic mug rotate in the microwave, you would hate that I’m not taking the time to boil fresh water. Don’t wait up for me, ill try not to wake you when I come upstairs but we both know now clumsy I can be. I’ll leave the window open for you and bundle myself
up. I wish we had enough candles to light up the room, instead of fluorescent lights. I wish had more days to spend together, that I didn’t have to creep back in the quiet nightfall.
29 I want a pair of earrings made of wind chimes so I can always have music in my ears, but I think they’d be too heavy. I want a mug with eight handles because I think it would look funny but it’d be impossible to drink from. I want all signs to be neon signs but that would probably hurt my eyes. I want a new mind and some better ideas, but then I wouldn’t be myself.
30 I love dark lipstick stains on glass cups, and footprints in the sand. Hair in the shower drains and dirty tissues in the waste basket, even the gross things are a confirmation that I am not alone, When a chair holds onto the lingering warmth of its previous user, when bathroom stalls have graffiti made by many different hands. When wooden railings have been warm smoother then sea class from human skin, I love anything that reminds me of all the living, breathing souls around me.
31 If I still loved someone who was on chemotherapy I would be terrified right now so I guess it’s a good thing you are already dead.
32 The radiator hums beside me, as comforting and constant as the rain. It’s a beautiful day but I have to find my solace indoors. I love the way light streams in through blinds or window panes, particles of light sliced up by houses. The way spiders stretch their webs between the banister and the railing. The way life manages to grow straight through structures. I nearly drank a bug
the other day that landed in my water cup. It was almost worth it to be reminded that I am part of a larger ecosystem.
33 The sun is setting now and I’m almost done with this piece. I’d like to say that I know more than I did three days ago, that I’ve learned something in this time, but mostly I am just tired.
When I get home I’m going to curl up like a dog on the couch and eat hot food until my stomach hurts. I’ll have a whole pot of tea to myself. I’ll listen to the music I’ve been missing and dance with myself, I’ll let my thoughts swirl and disperse instead of trying to catch and express them. I will miss this room that has become my temporary home I’ll leave behind my blood stains and a little piece of my brain. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I didn’t enjoy writing it.
34 I’ll be back in a few days to erase all these words and bury them under a new layer if paint.
The side of my hand is rubbed raw and my pinky finger is beginning to blister, but the going is still bittersweet. In all these lines of writing there are only a few that I’m really proud of but I had to write everything out to get to the good things. Perhaps one day ill distill all this down and write one perfect thing with the clunky components, but for now I’ll leave you with my sadness and my anger and my too illusive joy, my fears and my wishes and my dreams, and everything else that is stored in my silly lines of poetry. Goodbye and thanks for reading.
