gut.

my body still reacts.

my brain catches up, eventually.

and i understand, eventually.

and it subsides, eventually.

a step forward,

two steps back.

wanting a beginning.

or, am i waiting for an end?

thinking it will come.

or, not thinking at all.

maybe i’m all feeling.

even before i know it’s happening.

a lump in my chest,

the pang in my throat.

S. 

ephemera.

in the creases of my skin, 

in the shedding of petals, 

in the paint peeling off the walls,

in the mold and mildew, 

in the dust settled on a picture, 

in the dirt with the dead,

in the worn spines of books,

in the erosion of rock to sand,

in the weathered wood,

in the decay and the rot,

in the blink of an eye,

time does pass. 

S. 

ripe.

was i birthed in a storm of fire and brimstone?

emerging from a fractured rib, shards still speckled with flesh.

did the earth quake when i uttered my first howl?

for i came into this world in chaos. a miracle: bloody, pristine.

born with the innocence of my naked ancestors.

born carrying their sins, their rage.

embedded somewhere deep inside the depths and creases of my body,

hiding in the caves and crevices; bones, skin, hair, nails.

stretching the thin membrane anchored to the past until it tears, releasing me from the veil i’ve inherited.

where they wish i was soft, a gentle creature,

i offer splinters. i offer embers.

i offer this:

it is not my duty to be docile and diminished.

instead, i nourish a tree, watching it blossom and swell.

and when the fruit reveals itself, plump and ripe, bruised with the weight of what is within,

i will pluck it, every time.

devouring it until the fleshy pulp runs down my fingers,

and seeps into the scorched roots beneath my feet.

S. 

in vitro.

when silence is deafening, like hearing the ocean in a shell, it feels infinite.

cup your head in your hands, listen.

a phantom is a memory, after all;

an imprint, left behind.

coursing through every nerve,

and floating to the tip of the tongue,

emerging only as a silvery wisp.

unseen but impenetrable.

the lack of colour, the lack of matter.

the feeling is serpentine, slick and dry,

weaving through the cracks.

where sharp edges jut into each other in the right places.

forged in the dark, ugly, clunky.

a scraping of metal until the teeth meet.

a perfect fit if you press hard enough.

S. 

afterhours.

the enigmatic hours, teetering on the cusp of day and night. the hours reserved for what we think is peace. like a moth careening into what it thinks is the moon.

the vastness of the sky, blanketed in carbon-black silk. seductive as it unfurls, a vial of spilled ink leaving a stained path.

making caged birds out of us; covered in silence, waiting for rest.

kept company by the phantoms, first formed in a dream. or was it a memory? of a place I have not been, of whom I have not met. 

the hours that bring a sensed menace, pieced together from lore and myth, old Gods and new. 

i am asleep, or awake, or both, or neither.

S. 

your ears should be burning.

a really great song feels like loving someone.

it’s softer core, or maybe the underlying melancholy. the lyrics are poetry, written to capture that one sweet little thing. it makes your heart lurch, like it does when someone’s quirks show; when they are unaware that you notice. the tune builds in time with your smile, or your tears fall in tempo.

it’s like i’m meant to feel and remember each part of it. the tune, the corner-of-the-eye lines that give away worry. lyrics, the slight crookedness of a nose. chords, earlobes, nervous hands.

sometimes it feels like your heartbeat is a crescendo, a chorus of booming instruments.

of course, you know it will end. and with every listen, you know what’s coming.

but, while you listen, it’s the only song in the whole world.

S.

deeper.

i finally watched my octopus teacher a few weeks ago, and it moved me in a way i was not expecting. the story of a beautiful, and unlikely, bond between a film-maker and a timid octopus, forged through patience and softness.

i understood immediately why the film-maker took up diving in the rolling thunder of dangerous tides to escape. what it feels like to be under the heavy wracking of an ocean-like force. the fury of crashing waves. feeling the pressure build as you go deeper into yourself. waiting for the moment that gives way to serenity – and then, floating weightlessly, to a place deeper than this made-up world. an uninterrupted place.

this is a story about intimacy and what it opens up inside of you. how your capacity to love and care for another being is about your own growth. how allowing yourself to feel is an act of bravery. how connection and wanting to understanding the other is in our primordial habits. a story about nurturing the thing that makes you feel safe. a story of revelation, between two scared, broken creatures.

i saw myself in it. as the nurturer, and the one that needed nurturing. as both the chaser, and the one running away. as a child, and what i think adulthood is. i saw my fear, i saw my resilience. i saw my heartbreaks and the hope to start over. i saw the beauty and the cruelty of allowing yourself to be vulnerable. i saw life and death and the inevitability of both.

 i saw a tangle of limbs, soft and strange and wonderful. and isn’t that all we are?

S.

untitled.

this is the first time i sat down to create something without an inspiration or guiding thought. it was intimidating, to think that maybe nothing would come.

i dug deeper and deeper trying to find something within myself that would cause the familiar spark. an emotion to tear away from my insides, transfer onto pulp and fiber. embalm it in glue and binding.

i felt dusk and dawn. foaming waves and the lightning slicing through the sky. levitation and depth. defiance and acceptance.

i felt vast.

S.

fantasy.

i’m a day-dreamer. always have been. layering fantasies on top of my lived experiences. watching the scene where the heroine cries in the rain. listening to songs that press into the part that hurts. the oozing of paint on canvas, blurry and thick, and blue.

there was always a desperation in the fantasies - where i saw melancholy as beauty, and made my devotion into worship. dragging people on top of pedestals they didn’t climb up onto. despairing when they fell from them. i didn’t make that decision consciously. and i know there’s a part of the brain that confuses the synaptic relationship between pleasure and pain. i wonder if that applies on a less visceral level, if that applies to how we feel things.

as i made this collage, i thought about how strange it feels to know, deep deep down, that you have to abandon your own fantasy. you crafted it so carefully, in the dark caverns of your mind. how alien to deconstruct it until it becomes something else entirely. something kinder for yourself, and the others you placed into that swirling world of smoke and perfumed poison.

until it becomes something softer, gentler.

S.

north node.

an ephemeral streak, a fiery grounding

i feel the significance of the universe

and the insignificance of us,

for when we have rotted down to dust,

the planets will churn, as they have

before, and after.

stars will collapse, leaving black holes in their place

where even the light cannot escape.

cosmically destined to remain invisible,

only making their presence known by tearing apart what crosses their path.

S.