Q&A: Interview

Q&A: Interview

would we recognize each other if we saw each other? turns out i do, it just took me a few minutes. i just gessoed over a canvas of you. that was enough.

would we recognize each other if we saw each other? turns out i do, but it took me a while. it wasn’t your face that pulled me in, it was your shirt. i have the same one.

i just gessoed over a canvas that put the last shovelful of dirt over your grave. i am now covering it in things that actually matter to me, with exactly one implication of you.

(i don’t want to disrupt the flow, but if i really didn’t care, why am i trying to rub it in? what am i trying to prove? and to who?)

that was a lifetime ago, was it not? the feelings i had at the time were okay to feel,(thisisgrowth) but now i don’t know why i was ever sad. angry. upset. empty. whatever the fuck.

(i have since learned that all emotions have been hidden and obscured)

i shoved you in a therapy shaped hole, diagnosed with bpd, (probably,) at least that’s what they told me in the hospital last march when they found me bleeding out and overdosed on the floor.

i shoved you in a therapy shaped hole, undiagnosed with bpd, because that psychiatrist didn’t know me for more than ten minutes, and she didn’t even write it down.

would we recognize each other if we saw each other? i asked myself that for years. i’ve changed so much, yet you might notice that nothing has changed. at all.

would we recognize each other if we saw each other? i hope my face was only familiar in a distant way, desperately trying to put a name on it. you don’t even know my name.

i had my closure forever ago. but i always wondered. if we’d recognize each other if we saw each other again.

he told me that we’d spend the rest of our lives looking for each other in new lovers, and then he said he was joking. i can think of twenty reasons why this is not the case and about three reasons why it is.

i can't wait for it to be 5pm on a friday

you don’t need god, you need a single general admission ticket to a semi-rowdy crowd. you need the bass pounding in your chest, the push of bodies all around you, dry mouth, shirt stuck to your back with sweat, screaming along with strangers you have never met and will never meet again, that is healing you cannot get anywhere else. you need to take a minute to realize its safe to be yourself, howl along with the crowd. i don’t know how we synchronize up like this.

artist statement for photos not yet developed:

its cliche to run around taking pics of gravestones. yet i do it anyway. i take pictures of the same things over and over again.

exit signs.

yearning for loved ones.

the balance between processing emotions, grief, and running the other way. grief.

bring your loved ones closer, steal flowers from the neighbor’s, write their name in the prayer book of a god you don’t believe in. because its comforting to think you can help from where you are.

give grandma the memorial bench. its the thought that someone cared enough to, not the money and lavish treatment received. i miss her.

i miss people i never met. yet i feel my mother and father’s grief, i feel the holes in their heart, the weight of my mother’s sobs on the staircase, the night my grandfather passed.

i miss my grandma.

she’d be so proud. i’ll bring her a book. i know she loves me, she’s probably praying for me and doesn’t approve of who i really am.

but her love was infectious. it was strong. she was so proud of everything i did. i wish i had more time. i took her for granted. i still wish i could surprise her with flowers. go out for dinner with her. read her texts.

my heart starts to hurt. exit.

one (1)

i was never actively suicidal.

it wasn’t until i was shaking on the floor, (was i drunk?) staring at my wrists realizing that i may have fucked it up this time.

there was never a solid date and time, (why would there be?)

it wasn’t until the blood was dripping on the floor that i texted my friends, in complete fucking crisis, completely fucking incoherent,

“does she still have all your knives?”

“see, here’s the part you’re not going to like.”

i ripped a page out of a hard bound sketchbook. (there were rules?) addressed it to you, don’t totally remember what i said, something along the lines of “i think i might have accidentally ended it tonight, don’t blame yourself, i love you”

i write backwards to obscure what i say, as if my erratic way of jumping from thought to thought wasn’t enough. work for it. i don’t make easy listens. i give you something to analyze. everything has a reason.

or maybe i’m just a shit writer

i remember when i came back to my dorm room. everything was untouched. a half empty jug of milk sitting outside my fridge. the note in front of the door. a pile of blankets on the floor by the window, because i spent a whole week crying. my goldfish swimming in their tank on top of my desk. blood on the floor. i was wearing that bullets long sleeve.

blue jeans.

that’s how you know i’m sad. when i’m wearing colors? some part of me must love myself, because i do everything i can to try and cheer myself up.

want to talk about it?

some other part of me must hate myself, because he says “fuck this,” and i don't remember where i was going with the sentence, which is actually the problem.

endings. i was never too good at those. and yet i keep apologizing for it instead of trying to fix it.

last thursday night, i spent hours researching hrt. i told my best friend. i was 87% sure i wanted to do it. he said, “can i play devil’s advocate?” and i said, “yes,” and he said, “are you sure you want to do it? its a permanent change.”

i laughed.

(i say shit without thinking. i will always say yes to him without thinking. i won’t think about the consequences with him. that’s what happens when this shit is indescribable.)

i get where he’s coming from. but i feel weird, wasn’t it painful to watch me struggle for years to insist i was a girl when i so clearly never quite wore it right? do you really think this is something i’ve decided overnight?