Date of Submission

Spring 2021

Academic Program

Photography

Project Advisor 1

Barbara Ess

Project Advisor 2

David Bush

Abstract/Artist's Statement

The eyes stay closed for a long time. oils, my leftover scraps, drops of saliva and grit forming a shell, eyelashes sealing to my lids.

Fingertips, friction ridges vibrating, wanting. I am trying to touch everything, touch myself, I touch another. I lie, pressing hard and soft, things feel the same. they smell different. They spoil, fresh to rot and back again. They taste so different but are the same, different only in response.

I lick my lips and the spit dries on the corners of my mouth.

My cleft palate all sewed up. Precious little threads holding it together, little hairs. Skin of a peach. Hard and soft at once, Can I swallow it whole? Will the pit catch in my throat? Friction ridges of a pit, does a fingertip feel any different?

Maybe it will touch my insides better than I can. Maybe it will become a new fingerprint, buried in my belly.

My eyes still closed, crusty flecks, my orifices and bits of skin moving, inhaling. Boundary is in the distance. Repulsive, I stare at it, I can’t stop. I want it, I want to feel it, it makes me nauseous. Repelling and magnetic, I can’t see it, too dark and bright at once.

I stare at it. I don't need my eyes. I want to vomit and it comes out of me, but its not what I thought it was. I sink my hand into it. It breaks open, boundary transformed. I am covered in it, so wet, filling me in and out. It catches in the clefts, and slits, the corners of my lips and cuticles. Writhing and slippery at first, it settles and dries and begins to crack. Its always changing, like little silver scabs floating away.

My eyes no longer encrusted, I see the bits and pieces falling off my senses. They look back at me. Little flakes showing my insides and outsides. They drift off, they are glinting with something new. I see through my boundary, no more insides or outsides.

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