Collagen
"the main structural protein found in skin and other connective tissues, widely used in purified form for cosmetic surgical treatments." -Sometimes I add layers to make things look better. Sometimes these layers go so far from the source that I don't even know what I'm trying to say. What am I trying to say? Something about balance...
Soft boy
In two weeks time, we spilled. My fault.
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After breakfast at the cafe with dollar coffee
we sat on the arboretum hill, warm with smoke over the city
looked sleepy all light in the color of the setting, and we talked about addictive personalities
passing smoke, you offered to share your apartment — a bed, a table, a kitchenette. I accepted for the smell of it. For the turn
of the broken knob to know your face waiting, warm.
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That night we chopped broccoli and drank wine from the box, dancing in my kitchen as the heat transferred.
We went to that same beersweatsoaked basement. We went
room to room. Your wide eyed stare lit some mutual infatuation with infatuation.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about that feeling that people feel when they feel deeply for someone.” I was drunk.
“I know what you mean.” You were too.
We left to the cold, end of November
so we went
bundled to the top of that hill we’d run down like children, letting our legs catch each intended fall.
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You took my shoulders.
“I want to wait.” You weren't wrong.
“You can if you want.” I was hungry.
“I love you.”
“I love you.”
My fault.
Oh heartbreak... what a classic source of emotional turmoil. To properly move on from a lost relationship, I covered a collaborative painting I made with my ex-partner with pages from my journal that I wrote about my ex-partner. I layered more recent pages from my journal: doodles and poems on desire and self-loathing. Then I doodled with colorful sharpies, attempted at some black-out poetry using the original journal entries, and smashed mulberries all over. The whole is a mess of my mind: colorful, random, and sometimes wise.
To my self and other peas
Close your eyes and listen close / love the parts that break the most
brittle and bitter a bite without butter / a tug on the sleeve from daughter to mother
Please mother protect me from your very wrath / the voice in my head that won’t let faults pass
the voice is my own, for mothers is me / and daughter is self, my sweet little pea
A pea is a plant that winds up the stem / borrowing height for she’s able to bend
while stalks take up sun by force and by power / beans must adapt to blossom and flower
Upon feeling overly self indulgent and purposeless while trying to put together a book of poetry, I decided to cut up and collage the printed poems I was in the process of editing. Then I burned patches and covered with childhood stickers.
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There is a line between cherishing and self confidence I have yet to cross.