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Capturing Campus: Feeding Ritual

EKArts Leave a comment

Content warning: Eating disorders, binge eating, rituals

Feeding Ritual

Keep the food in the fridge and out of your mouth; disregard the growling; don’t consider the taste; come up with guidelines to follow to a T; that means no chips, no bagels, no pasta, no pretzels, no fried foods, no Diet Coke, no fatty meats, no butter on toast, no ice cream, no cone for the ice cream, no school lunches, no holiday dinners, no Krispy Kreme donuts (that one is important); bread is a trap; chocolate is a lie; don’t drink your calories; eat exactly half your meal; turn down the offer; it’s Halloween: too bad; it’s Christmas: He starved or bled to death (one of the two); it’s best not to consider the feeling of fullness; run to feel better; run until your legs burn; run until long after your legs burn; move at a crawl because your legs burn; don’t lose control; people are good at spotting those things; but search the cupboards and fridge anyway; grab something, anything, everything; don’t stop for air; keep shoveling, and it’s all well and fine; eat until the world has turned upside down; feel embarrassed; feel hateful; feel envious of prior bodies, of other bodies; be out of control; be angry; be ugly and spiteful at the world which births and suffocates; be proud of the mess; deny it all; keep killing yourself; don’t stop.

aSoSS 38 | Markdown

a-spider-on-state-street Leave a comment

Oh yeah, how was your birthday?

It was nice.

How old are you turning, 17? Hmm, something’s not adding up!

EECS Building. 3:30PM, 11/21/2024

it has been one year but not quite one birthday. the ball drops. you used to think it would shatter, that the people in the square would be pelted with shards of glass, the previous year burrowing into skin as a final act of rebellion. now i think it is not too far from reality, that the more we celebrate, the more of the self we sacrifice. i tear off the last page of the calendar and notice a message carved into the cardboard backing. you made it! perhaps not everything requires a celebration, but today is an exception.

[pointing to price tags] five, five forty, five forty-five… nothing is cheap!

NCRC Building 20, 4:00PM, 11/19/2024

red circles around black squares, a day to be dreaded either forwards or backwards: either living in fear of it, or looking back and mourning the wisdom gained with hindsight. a markdown on the quality of life, some would say. humans are creatures of structure. we are not beavers, we do not need to live our lives regulating the currents of space, stemming the flow of time. and yet we construct our own complacency. we convince ourselves that our habits pass for our happiness. the red circles have been relegated to excess inventory, to clearance–cash in on the memory today or risk losing it forever. the price to pay? you must tell your story.

They have price tags under their tags that are cheaper…

They’ve gotta pay rent.

We’re not helping!

Rally House, 8:30AM, 11/29/2024

telling a true story is impossible. it is deceptive, the folds of detail stored and scrambled, this perverse act of remembering. in reality, remembering is the easy part; stripping the petal from the stamen, sterilizing the thought so it does not reproduce, is much harder. any emotion associated with an action is boiled away, a chrysanthemum tea prepared for the hanged man–a scribe, tasked with an unbiased account of the emperor, a death sentence in this life and the next. tomorrow I will waste another hour regretting yesterday, whispers the man. a wisdom, distilled in blood, paid for in sanity.

~Sappy Daze~ Day 10

Sappy Leave a comment 
Whisper 

i remember thinking i could channel the 
energy of the earth in gym class while 
on the verge of losing dodgeball 
i crouched down and touched the sticky 
gym floor i don’t remember if i won or 
not only that at that moment i truly felt 
the power of nature and used it perhaps 
that’s one privilege children have their 
ability to ask favors from the soil burying 
their mother the earth that will one day 
bury them too

- sappy

Capturing Campus: Post-gestation

EKArts Leave a comment

new year, old her

scared of nothing

worth the fear

who knew nothing

of the world

watched with clean eyes

lucky

she knew she was 

but didn’t know 

the possibilities that mold and fur

on the tongue 

the promises of freedom

that smoldered 

like the end of a cigarette 

snuffed out 

walking by

faceless people dying on faceless ground

turning heads away from death

kicking change from Big Gulp cups

because there aren’t any Coinstars where we’re going

where we’re going 

some argue is already written

but the news is always new

always angry 

spitting words wedged between molars 

spoken without pause 

not meant to be held by a head

how can shoulders bear

the weight?

waiting for the refresh to stop 

circling the drain

staring at the screen 

calling it a friend

because who has friends these days?

red veins where the whites were

it’s time to go to sleep; dreaming in blue

forget today and tomorrow

the next day

too—late for living 

is this what the world always was?

we are told things were better

but were they ever

what we remember?

the skin she was born with

that was supple and growing

is no longer growing

but dying

bleeding with knowing

knowing all there is 

to be scared of

and there is so much to be scared of.

aSoSS 37 | Yield

a-spider-on-state-street Leave a comment

How much you wanna bet? Quick, quick, quick!

None. He’s right there!

Coward. You’re a coward.

NCRC Building 28, 5:00PM, 11/19/2024

it’s true: only cowards yield. i walk outside and avert my eyes at the inevitable sunset, the reunion of sun and moon, if only for an instant. one, perhaps fearing the stare of the other, blushes and peeks out of sight. there is a boy picking at weeds, at the flowers that have managed to sprout. there is no object permanence; every night is eternal, every morning a razor against the stem. above, the universe looks on, forlorn. for what being it has created, this parcel of stardust living on a speck of sand! we are sunrays, stones, cycles, and as such, condemned. swallowing words, yielding glances, circling the event horizon, knowing that time dilates, and perhaps preferring this unknown to the unfathomable.

I’m all for feminism, but there is a part of me that wants to go home and stay home and just eat pie…

Trader Joe’s, 12:30PM, 11/24/2024

after Susan Ertz: “millions long for immortality who don’t know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon”—

it is an anger in the sky, cared for like a seed and cursed at like a storm. i come home to a polygon of light, green and pulsating–alive, as you would call it, though it is not capable of thought, or is at least intelligent enough to hide it. a modesty born of horror, you and i: an acid in the rain, a tangible tartness in the air. the door creaks open and you emerge, handsome as ever. i take your hand, as your woman, your man, it does not matter. arm in arm, a reversal of mitosis, two cells merging into one. the light begins to sing, an angel harmonizing with mother nature’s screams.

It’s a mess everywhere and you want to complain about a spot on the carpet?

Detroit Metro Airport, 6:00PM, 12/16/2024

consider the idea of a memory palace, a world within worlds, a dam to filter your stream of consciousness. watch as the beaver lays the foundation, mats the cracks with mud and other antiquities. you spot a marble wedged in one of the crevices. blue, brilliant, too smooth to be natural, too beautiful to be manmade. we dust ourselves in metaphors–allegories, alleged and analogous–when we are missing the words. in another universe, another parable, there is no Joy. no Disgust, no Anger, no Sadness. in place of a control panel, a river: wild and untamed and free.