Contain me,

A tear, a physical one.

When I was working on this series, I couldn’t help but feel that urge to release something. A rotten tooth that needed to be extracted, pulled.

As this series began, I was only thinking of a vessel,

something that held all of my parts, all of my overly saturated feelings, the pain, the yearning. A scream encapsulated, not necessarily the unpleasant ones, but all that makes me sink. As I take it all in, I realize that there isn’t space for it here.

So, contain it all for me. Will you?

This bag is a part of me, a remote extension of what I can no longer physically hold. One by one, it became heavy, seeing it in front of me, all the weight.

I don’t create for the sake of beauty. I do because if I don’t, there is no release. That itch cannot exist in my mind where I can’t reach it. If it does, I want to be able to sit with it, look back at it, and feel uncomfortably witnessed.

And then it teared, reminding me that no matter how close my stitches are, we are mere humans, a sack of flesh and blood, containing unearthly channels, light and death. So, we stretch, tan, tear, and change.

The more I played with this skin (made out of liquid latex, please don’t arrest me), the more it behaved like literal skin. As I worked next to my studio window, the more it tanned, the heavier it became, stretch marks were born.

It broke on me because I broke it, as my body can’t contain it all, this external being can’t either.

The more my heart flutters at my existence, the more I remember this is exactly what living means.

The attempts to contain what can’t be contained.

I end with questions, with ambiguity lingering as my dreams dissolve into waking eyes. You don’t have to understand it all. as long as it was felt.