Without telling anybody else
Catalogue essay for Improper Structures curated by Eliza Tiernan and Josephine Briginshaw, Melbourne Design Week Australia, 2022
I thought that finding the answer would make me feel better. But it only makes me ponder. You said something inappropriate last night that made me laugh and now I have a crush on you. Everyone is doing laps at the pool, while I am drowning. I shaved my long hair, only to let it grow again. The taste of chlorine at the back of my tongue reminds me of clean floorboards at the School Principal’s Office. I need to borrow your dreams because someone stole mine. I learnt shame after meeting shame and now I am ashamed of feeling shame.
A negative feeling that is neither the headache of envy, nor the emptiness of confusion: the apathy of satisfaction. The Principal asked me why did I lit a cigarette in the bathroom and I replied, “because I could.” When an eater finds a feeder, they discover neurological captivity. Google says that I have visited your webpage ‘many times’ and now I fear Analytics may reveal too much. The stage is now frightening and dangerous, therefore irresistible.
Procrastination is the fear that I am capable but lazy. Their date pulled out a guitar and started playing flamenco—it was cringe, albeit musically proficient. ‘Thought addiction’ reminds me that chronic emptiness is the underlying disease in drinking-a-little-too-much. You are nice but my needs are radical judgement. Seven days playing one song on repeat to stop time from passing with minimal success. If a stranger robs a ring in your dream, it symbolises a broken promise. The more I try to push everyone away, the more they like me—it is very confusing.
The scrupulosity of a school librarian, the body of a gecko and the charisma of a pervert in a cocktail of longing. I met an older Chilean poet who told me, “you are an attractive man—not a beautiful man—and there is a difference between the two.” My plants know that to live in my house, they need to learn how to grow properly or not grow at all. When I was 17, a stranger called me every day to chat for weeks, until his obsessive miscalls became alarming. “Next time you will be dialling my number from prison hijo de tu chingada madre!” I screamed in the garage, where privacy isolated me from parental enquiry. It was the last time I heard his voice, without ever learning his real name.
My psychologist told me that when we started therapy, I would create a sinister atmosphere in the room and this remark made me realise that he is a judgemental person. But why did I pick up calls from a stranger to engage in conversation without telling anybody else? Curiosity looks like 2 police officers running towards their car as one of them exclaims “oh shit, oh shit,” prior to them taking off at high speed. A YouTube clip of a cow and a bull having sex as they walk towards a moving vehicle that crashes against them. Both survive.