She writes portraits
Or rather
she has found someone
who writes them for her
She considers herself a compiler of assets
Her collaborator could be
compared to an archivist
Someone who analyses content
It was no easy task to find someone
suitable
for the extent of her documentation

Sometimes she asks herself,
why recompose something so compostable
as the memory of someone?
When you miss someone,
what is it, you miss about them?
An image, a picture?
Where in your presence do they reside
when you forget about them?

The way they look at you when they ask;
should I get you a coffee?
Their voice on the other line,
breaking up through a weak connection,
telling you they are on their way,
and the way they smell
when they come pick you up from your work
Waiting outside,
the way they look
at the people passing by
and the passers by
gaze on them
How they speak
to someone over the counter

You lock eyes,
for the first time
How did they feel the first time you touched?
The way they get dressed,
asking for your opinion,
what color suits them the best?
The way they undress
How they fold their clothes
after they’ve been washed

Open the fridge, open a window,
ask for a lighter, gaze at something odd,
in the periphery of your shared frame

Is it the way they touch you
when they try to reach you,
reach through you,
that stays
when everything else has departed?
I used to think that if I could document all sensations in a given moment, I would later on be able to travel back to that place in my mind. Close my eyes to the present and open them to the past. I memorized the temperature, the nuances of the season, the height from which I was looking, dimensions, proportions and held this as a piece of evidence.
The things she told me
were so terrifying
I could only take her in
for a short moment a day

So I decided for
what you may consider
a pedantic structure
one without considered sensitivity,
but may I remind you,
after six rounds of 25 minutes of
interval writing
my fingers are nearly frozen

When I round off my writing sessions
I’m usually exhausted
and I make myself a warm meal
I eat in silence
and if the electricity has been on
for enough time to let me charge my phone,
I call someone,
a family member or a friend
These days
they are all in remote places

If I’m feeling social,
as in chatty,
or a bit needy,
I visit my neighbor
who lives down the street
near the abandoned antique shop
there are not many of us left
on this formerly busy street
most shops relocated
when the electricity broke
what must have been
10 months ago
One of the strangest part-time jobs I ever had was surveilling an art installation in a blue-chip gallery in the western parts of the city. I would arrive there at 10.45 and get dressed in my full black suit. The gallerist was obsessed with lookalikes and I’d been hired because I looked just like someone else. She wouldn’t tell me who. It was ridiculous. She’d just unfavorably look over at me whenever I’d arrive. “Get dressed darling”, she’d say and I’d slide into the straitjacket of the day.

You can always tell when affirmative language has been hijacked. It’s like the vowels have gotten drunk in some outcast place of the city, and then crawled back to the bright light, asking for permission to never go stray again. That’s how you become robotic. You ask for permission to never fuck up again. In order to receive that permission you need to sacrifice. I’m not sure what was with this woman but she paid my bills and she enjoyed dressing me up like her little mannequin. She never asked any personal questions, took absolutely no interest in me as a person, and smiled mechanically whenever I answered a question of hers with more than a syllable. For three months I guarded an installation in her gallery. It wasn’t like I was her gallerina, or assistant of any kind, I was profoundly remote from any kind of intellectual property the gallery solicited. I was just there, in the white cube corner locale with its wide windows exposed to the side-street of the fanciest high-street there possibly was, at least in my bank of knowledge.

For a solid 8 hours I would walk around the art installation in the middle of the space. It was a mini-version of the gallery, with glass windows and with a plush-sculpture of another janitor overseeing the space. The plush-janitor had been squeezed into the same uniform I’d been made to wear but wore a bunny head and angel-wings. So much for the lookalike. In hindsight I find my own role in the piece ultimately perturbing. But at that time I just didn’t care. When you’re part of a crew - I mean whatever that means to you - like you know your place – wherever that is for you – all other places just come off as obsolete. Like being in love. Your sight gets smudged for better or worse.

People would enter and I would greet them, tell them some words about the exhibition, and ask them to step into the simulation once they felt ready. Within the cube they received some VR-helmets that kept them occupied for approximately 40 minutes. During that time I would just stand at some place in the gallery, often with my hands interlaced, lightly resting on my sacrum bone, looking at the people walking by on the outside.

<3 - 2023-12-29 13:36:28 - <3<333333

adolphus50@moneysquad.org - 2022-10-06 00:56:37 -

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adolphus50@moneysquad.org - 2022-10-06 00:56:35 -

joan14 - 2022-10-06 00:56:35 -

Developer - 2022-10-06 00:56:33 -

Developer - 2022-10-06 00:56:25 -

shannon_boyer@moneysquad.org - 2022-10-06 00:56:09 -

- 2022-10-06 00:56:08 -

shannon_boyer@moneysquad.org - 2022-10-06 00:56:06 -

joan14 - 2022-10-06 00:56:05 -

shannon_boyer@moneysquad.org - 2022-10-06 00:56:03 -

joan14 - 2022-10-06 00:55:57 -

118 Yundt Burg - 2022-10-06 00:51:14 -

- 2022-10-06 00:51:14 -

118 Yundt Burg - 2022-10-06 00:51:13 -

Suite 574 - 2022-10-06 00:51:12 -

118 Yundt Burg - 2022-10-06 00:51:11 -

Suite 574 - 2022-10-06 00:51:03 -

lonnie46 - 2022-10-06 00:50:45 -

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lonnie46 - 2022-10-06 00:50:43 -

nico.franecki@bdcimail.com - 2022-10-06 00:50:42 -

nico.franecki@bdcimail.com - 2022-10-06 00:50:40 -

lonnie46 - 2022-10-06 00:50:38 -

lonnie46 - 2022-10-06 00:50:21 -

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lonnie46 - 2022-10-06 00:50:17 -

baylee_harris@bdcimail.com - 2022-10-06 00:50:15 -

baylee_harris@bdcimail.com - 2022-10-06 00:50:13 -

lonnie46 - 2022-10-06 00:50:08 -

E - 2022-04-11 00:22:06 - so beautiful

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*_* - 2022-03-31 12:01:05 - I love it!!