if you listen very carefully,
you can hear the universe being born

katherine

Katherine walks out into the common room -- eyes wild, pupils inflamed with fire and anger -- seeing what others deny.

Her swollen breasts lay on her equally swollen belly. On her dark belly, an even darker line marks, "This is where life starts over."

Following a script no one else can read, she moves like a shadow across the room.

She walks around to my back. With a delicate finger she utters and burns a curse against my skin as horrible as death.

The ancient tree looked down obstinately at the fresh young vine, as it was beginning to make it's way up the tree's weathered bark.

"Why should I let you live?" asked the old tree.

"Because I am older than you are, and I know where you came from," replied the vine.

"I am the dream that you cannot quite remember, the first song that you sing in the morning. I am the cord that binds the rings of your life."

The ancient tree looked down obstinately at the fresh young vine, as it was beginning to make it's way up the tree's weathered bark.

"Why should I let you live?" asked the old tree.

"Because I know why the jaguar looks at it's feet," replied the vine.

i watched the wounded animal
down the barrel of the rifle.
as it was dying, it gifted me the wonder of the forest.

back through a narrow shaft of space,
along the bent-light arc of the bullet,
the old creature pierced my heart.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




...therefore the brilliance, if present at all, lies in the concepts, not in the works themselves. Concepts are low on market value, so continues the comical scene: throngs gathered and bowing before multi-million-dollared blank canvasses, praying to the god of art, lest they be one of the heretically uninformed.

the sun is shining and i feel so...

this sunshine is so cold cold cold and weak and the color of bile arching east to west casting shadows on a wet blanket of earth

a brown yellow spiteful orb that can barely illuminate it's own shortcomings

the substance of faded cold-to-the-touch plaster and shrill cries and whispering half-decayed corpses

But here lies the problem: most if not all standard treatments for melancholia and madness rely on generating at least some level of apathy or lethargy, or both.

This is not the result I am looking for. I am not interested in painting a more 'rosy' picture of reality. It is of more importance to me to be able to chronicle realities true nature. If I can work, if I am working, I am happy enough. If I cannot work, the most intense chemical bliss is a living hell. Inertia is the only thing I wish for from any treatment. Western medicine's desire to isolate, contain and eliminate tends to run contrary to this goal, at least in my case.

Through years of self-treatment, I have come to realize that the only way to have a reasonably successful life is make an ally of the illness itself. To do this, I have had to re-define the nature of this enemy-turned-ally, to think in terms of 'phenomena' rather than 'symptoms'. To lean into the illness, find it's bottom rather than waging war with the better part of my psyche.

he stood

HE WAS STANDING, WITH HEAD BOWED
HE LIFTED HIS ARMS UNTIL THEY WERE PARALLEL TO THE EARTH
HE RAISED HIS HEAD
HIS EYES OPENED
HE THOUGHT,
"THIS IS WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE HUMAN"