creative writing

The Touch of the Eye

I remember trying to hold my body against the liquid that wanted to escape my eyes. I remember pretty girls. I remember the feeling of suffocation vividly. I remember my mom was in the bathroom. She said I could come in. I remember her in the bath, which made me feel awkward. This was the first time I saw her naked. I remember I never really felt comfortable looking at anyone naked. I remember feeling perverted about looking. I remember feeling that my body was perverted. I remember trying to tell her what happened, and her not listening at all. I remember I couldn’t express my feelings. I remember her nipples. They were red, and reminded me of raspberries. I remember their texture as I glanced quickly. In my memory they seem abnormally raised off the surface. Those girls were probably right; I mean they did look good and way better than me.
You touch with your eyes. You feel my body with your eyes. You compare my body with your body. You imagine your own body. You feel embarrassed for my body. You experience my actions, my body, through touch by looking. My body experiences the action for you. You touch with my hands. You eat with my mouth. You can’t be my body. You can only pretend to be my body.



Diarrhea of the Mouth

Words flop out of my mouth like loose stool. The hole loose like a butt hole after it was just fucked. Never-ending sludge with no sense of control. It seems impossible to think before I speak when it just loosely escapes my body. The feeling of embarrassment when releasing this shit in public.
I use liquidy things like puddles because I feel like a puddle. Feelings are uncontrollable like puddles falling out of our mouths, out of holes in our bodies. I can’t find words for things that I feel, or, what I mean is when I’m experiencing intense feelings, my mouth can’t form words. These are the sounds of puddles, trying to come out of holes in my body.



Cake Face

I sit inside her lap, in her legs, my legs. I eat her face, my face.
Dough, face skin, I bite in to.
Fruit, and cheese chunks in raspberry jam.
I can feel the rising of fluids in the back of my throat.
My mouth and throat rejecting
Infinity, eternity, continual cycle
Fear of death and loneliness.
Self-contained suicide.



Paper Doll

You are my owner and I am your doll. Cut me out and play with my parts. I have parts that can go in many places. My parts don’t have to go where your parts go. I don’t have to use my eyes to look from my face. I can use my eyes to look from my arm or my ass hole. My mouth can be on my leg and I can eat from my thigh. My body is yours to sculpt. My body has no rules.



JarDress

Closed in tight.
Must carry my mother’s jars.
Left for me her rotten fruit.
Large body holder. Heavy. Made to carry.
Vinyl for skin, lace for lips.
I am mothering rotten filth, but feeding something sweet.
My flesh dress no blemishes to be seen.
What sprouts and festers on the outside instead infests the inside.
Rotten head rotten bed
I feed you my fruit. This offering of me to you.
No rot left behind
Part of me inside you.



Masquerade

Event dress, made for the occasion. A character in this social ball. The desire to be looked at like a pop icon. But deep underneath I’m ashamed of their eyes. I hide inside this loud persona. I want to own the stage. An interchangeable identity. Hiding behind neon green and lace, I have control of the curtain. They see what I want them to see.



Skin: Thought #1

Tan, hairy, bumpy, crusty latex.
Blemished and disfigured.
Pustule tumor lumps.
Hidden and veiled.
Then unmasked and revealed.
Unprotected and exposed.
Raw beauty.

Skin: Thought #2

Fabric covering filled with goo, a wet and creamy sack
Starts off as flat, I stretch and wrap to cover this heavy load.
Squishes and smooth’s me all together into one continuous blob.
Interchangeable, neon green and pink. It shines, sparkles, and changes colors. .
Soaks up what escapes it’s under layer. My discharge now shines and sparkles.
Can be stretched out, pinched and pulled.
I like to stuff things under my fabric.
I use fabric to sculpt my appearance.

Pink:

An Essential Color
Color reaction in the flesh.
Blush.
Make-up.
Excited.
Embarrassment.
Aroused and Inflamed.
Over heated, hot.
Feminine.
Mother’s favorite color.



Mother

Sharon Marie 1955 - 2008

A mother lying naked on a canopy bed. Bed that’s now mine and I lay naked in. I picture me as her. Fluffy feathers stuffed in a cotton sack swallowing the naked flesh. Her skin never seemed thick. Skin, thin and see-through. In my mind I could see her veins and the color of her innards showing through the skin just enough to change its color. Floppy, mushy, arms and thighs. Sack of bones. Like raw chicken skin; bumpy, stretchy and thin. Skinny bony lady not even of a hundred pounds. Her room reeking of an un-showered body. The smell of alcohol filtered through dirty pores, piss, period stank, and rotten food. An uneasy feeling mixed with warmth and familiarity. Memories that don’t go away and constantly float to the surface. I am the owner of this memory. I am the owner of this body.

Feeling mother’s scalp for bumps on her skin. Finding and popping them. Forever feeling and searching for bumps on my skin. Putting our heads on her lap so she could clean out our ears with bobby pins. The sound of metal scraping on oily, inner ear skin. It seems necessary now.

I read my Mom's autopsy report five times. I feel like if I keep reading it that it will be clearer, that I will be able to picture it better. But, because of lack of details, I am left unsatisfied. It doesn’t feel real. I can't stop thinking about the word "skin slippage", and the heat in the car. The “marbling color” of her skin. I wish I could have seen the body, her body.
I've had several dreams where my mother is in her bed and I try and touch her to see if she is really alive. I touch her and she’s almost always in this bed. In these dreams I know she's dead but she doesn’t know it. She talks to me and acts as if nothing happened, and I get confused.
I can’t reach an exact answer to how she died. There are too many unresolved questions. I am not sure sometimes if she is really dead. I have a hard time believing the unseen.
I'm afraid of forgetting my mother's voice a lot, and her ridiculous mannerisms. Sometimes I try and repeat the way she says my name. I sound a lot like her.
I remember this birth mark she had on her leg. I can picture it in my head but when I try to recreate it I can't.

The experiences that I have had in my life fully affect me and my work. My childhood, my family drama, my mother’s turbulent behavior, her life and death have fully affected my life and work. I can’t take the things I have seen, smelled, heard, and touched out of my mind. They are there and I am always reminded of them. I am a worrier and I obsess over things of the past. I understand things more if they physically affect me. If I do something or experience something I can understand it better. Words are confusing; they have to be translated to my body. Flesh moves and sounds, no words are needed. I can’t control my thoughts and emotions most of the time, they slip out. My work is that struggle.







I’m a Material Girl in a Material World

I am obsessed with the horrible and the abject; I want to be aware of and confront this thin line between, our flesh, our fluids, and, death. My work is situated in conversations about the body, flesh containing blobs of loose squishy wet material, fluids which push through its boundaries. Uncontrollable, sagging, pus filled pods crawling around with things falling out of their mouths trying, to control thought before feelings. Excretions oozing out of our holes, pouring onto are flesh, clothes, and floor.


We as humans are permanently bound to our materiality. We are susceptible to change, age, and the limits that our bodies place on us. We try to control this material. As we sculpt and push the limits, we alter our figure in ways that move past gender into our own personal motives for subjectivity. The human race is still interested in (and is impossible to escape from) these ideas that surround the flesh. I feel the need for this conversation to continue because as technology evolves with us we can lose sight of this vulnerability. In a world that values intelligence and ideas, over instincts, impulse, and emotions I aim to keep us grounded and humble to the reality that our existence is temporal. The curiosity I have to make my work lies in the process of discovering and experimenting with new materials to represent the body. Ultimately my endeavor is to evoke the physicality of our flesh and bones through the use of artificial materials. We can never escape from the corporeal nature of our bodies and how all of us eat, breath, fuck, shit and die.



Reproduced Horror: Fake Abjection

I create objects that represent, or interact with the body. My work is the imaginary body. I use the body as an armature for sculpture and performance. I make objects that deal directly with it but the actions are not actually happening in my flesh - they are not real bodily secretions, they are metaphors. I don’t open my flesh up and show actual pus and blood. They are stand-ins for the body, sensations, and feelings. They can be exaggerated and extreme when in the moment. My work is meant to give the audience an imagined experience. I am terrified of my real opened body. I want to imagine it because I connect to the things in life through the reactions that happen in my body. I want to use materials to express the language of the body, the feelings that I can’t convey through words.



My Family Tree Dream

If Matthew Barney and Lady Gaga were to have a spawn, that spawn would be me. My elder brother would be Alexander McQueen. My grandmother would be Louise Bourgeois and my grandpa would Paul McCarthy. Their crazy estranged sister’s would be Yayoi Kusama and Orlan

Things I think about on a regular basis that can't helped but be infused in my work....

I want to touch everything, like EVERYTHING, all the time.
I like bumps and prickly things.
I like to make things with out thinking.
I compulsively sew and fix garments of mine.
I love Fashion way too much.
I like having a lot of material things.
I like smelling things like my boyfriends armpit. It’s calming.
Sometimes my cat smells like she's been sleeping.
I always wonder if I'm weird.
I am always obsessed with the body. My body.
I feel like my body is leakier than other people.
I get worried about if my breath smells.....a lot.
I have anxiety about what others think about me often.
If I die I hope I don't shit on myself.
What if I fart on accident during yoga or any other part of my day.
I like having control of situations and of other people.
I picture myself dying a lot, sometimes being hit by a car, smashed between the car and a tree or pole, and I look down and see my guts out and exposed.
I then wonder who I would call first. Like that question, what are the three things you would grab if your house caught on fire? Only three?
I read my Mom's autopsy report five times.
I can't stop thinking about the word "skin slippage". And the heat in the car. The marbling color of her skin.
I wish I could have seen the body, her body.
I've had several dreams where my mother is in her bed and I try and touch her to see if she is really alive. I touch her but I know she's dead.
I'm afraid of forgetting my mother's voice a lot.
and her ridiculous mannerisms.
Sometimes I try and repeat the way she says my name. I sound a lot like her.
I remember this birth mark she had on her leg. I can picture it in my head but when I try to recreate it I can't.
I am very obsessed with skin.
I want my skin to turn hard like a shield.
I want to live for 200 years.
I feel fragile and pathetic.
I'm scared of the dark.
I'm afraid of my body giving up on me.
I'm afraid of dying.
I'm afraid of being alone.
I look at my skin a lot.
I pick at my face a lot.
I think I'm superficial.
I can smell myself. I like when I can. It makes me feel human.
My body's existence is very important to me.
My looks can be very important to me.
I don't like feeling self-conscious and stupid. But I do most of the time.
I feel like I don't make sense.
I'm impatient.
I really try to control my temper.
I wish I really knew how to "take it easy".
I'm intense with everything.
I sometimes drive myself crazy.