#38

On Love or Lack Thereof

I forget to forgive
Nothing is important
Holding back the fool again

Mine skull is split in two, angel; a firm and purposeful strike against blistered bone. Corn syrup seeps from the seams, candy-coloured, gelatinous. Cradling those broken shards before me - brain matter splattered against fresh tarmac - I look to my hands and weep.

Lola Falana in Lola Colt (1967) dir. Siro Marcellini.

Carrie (1976) was correct: I am overcome with disgust. It’s an acrid flavour, babe, prompting the inner corners of my mouth to downturn into a severe and bitter grimace. I look beyond the mottled glass pane of the train carriage to a family ambling through the bracken and bramble. Hands hovering above the keyboard, I find a feather resting before me. I stare at it as I write to you.

Foremost, I’m living again, and to do so an older self has had to die. “There is the girl before, and the girl after, and we are not the same,” I exclaim, seeking solace in the face of a stranger.

I’ve been away, on my own, for the very first time. This past weekend, I joined curator Lucy Elmes in conversation at Auction House, Cornwall, as part of Rame Projects' I Hadn’t Finished Talking to You Yet, a public programme exploring grief, death and bereavement through art.

Within it, I’d proclaimed a clear and pressing conflict. My Father died three years ago, and since that fateful day I’ve done my utmost to honour him within my work: to atone for the education that he’d never received, to realise the headstone that we could never afford, and to connect with others who, too, have experienced loss in all its hollow permanence. In spite of my Offerings, babe, he will never see me succeed.

As I begin this new life of mine in the wake of a breakdown - The Seven Year Itch perished to ash, putrid and pungent, lover - I realise that The Other has had to die, too. I no longer speak their name. I no longer attempt to know, rationalise or understand that figure far behind me. I pick apart the “Why?” and know it only to be misogyny - the insipid belief that women are ‘less than’ and, therefore, deserving of such degradation.

Lauren Bacall as Lucy Moore in Written on the Wind (1956) dir. Douglas Sirk.

I confided, babe, in a princess - a perfect girl waiting in the wings with a warm and supportive smile - who told me of a similar experience which she had been ignited by. A dear friend of hers, steadfast and true in his diction, had assured her: “There is no ‘his’ or ‘her’ side, there is only the truth.”

The truth, darling, I hadn’t imagined to be so divisive.

I’d never envisaged a circumstance in which I wouldn't be believed, reader, or where the validity of my experiences would ever be called into question, let alone yelled into the open street. While this reality is, undoubtedly, out of my control, it is with sadness, sword-in-hand, the most guttural pain that I have ever endured. Beyond a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, beyond that body in the hospital bed.

Art, dear reader, in all of its pretences and complexities, is a lifelong pursuit which I shall never cease. In the wake of this near-fatal wounding - bile-building, blood-spluttering - I find all etiquette begin to quickly disintegrate.

“Fuck art,” I bemoan with heavy breath, depressed. Fuck my practice, the studio, the gallery. In instances of intimate partner violence - that conditioning I am desperate to undo, babe - my emotional wellbeing takes total priority. This, reader, is where the venom possesses me. Hot and swelling; hairs raised as Layla in a fit of miniature rage, curled claws piercing into goose-pimpled flesh.

Should there be any seed of doubt within your mind of my experience, reader, I rebuke you. Should our relationship exist on the ephemeral idea that I can provide professional benefit to you, I rebuke you. Should I die in squalor in the pits of Walsall, pigeons feeding from my chest, I shall die content in knowing that my relationships were built upon unwavering, unconditional love.

Betty Boop and Fearless Fred in There’s Something About a Soldier (1934) dir. Dave Fleischer.

Love is a perfumed and heavy-lidded feeling and I now know it so - feel it, deeply. As I fall away from that calloused vampire, into the arms of a tender friend - treacle eyed and kind hearted - I remember whose prayers I’m in. Powder-pink petals encircle around me, as I draw him in for a first kiss. I allow that saliva to web us together, embracing its stickiness.

“You were in my du’as,” an angel tells me. Tears form and fall like pearls.

I split those ribs of his and climb inside the carcass for warmth. Forcing mine head through his chest - blood, guts and entrails, babe - I hear that loving muscle of his pump erratically. “I can’t believe you’re real,” I inhale, pinching at his skin. He smiles wide-eyed and holds me.

I forget to forgive
Nothing is important
Holding back the fool again