Dementia Praecox: a site-specific installation
an excerpt

I am saying goodbye to a lover i have had for six years. Six formative years. I have devoted myself to him and have seen him everywhere. I seek him out places and he is always there when I least expect it and I am always happy to see him. Whe hold each other and we feel safer than any other moment of our lives. I have defended and protected him and he has shown me that I have a purpose. And it has been a lovely six years and part of me wants to continue but I cannot meet him everywhere I have to live past him. So tomorrow I’m getting on a Greyhound bus and hopping over to Boston to meet him one last time and say goodbye. I am writing him a letter full of emotions I know he cares too much about. And I will return to New York, return to my room and the next time I go to the Astor Place Starbucks, I will be alone.

Show, not tell.

I know what is happening logically and when I write it, it has no meaning because it’s all logic and I don’t know the syntax of expressing otherwise, expressing the heart.

So I shall wait until my emotion is more extreme and vomit onto the page.

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THERE IS NO MUSIC TO DESCRIBE THIS FEELING.

no no no no no no no no no please tell me no i am not going tomorrow this is all a bad dream no no no no no everything is swirling around me and THERE IS NO MUSIC THAT CONVEYS THIS CHAOS BECAUSE MUSIC IS ORGANIZED AND THIS IS NOT i am washing my bedsheets i am washing them so everything can be neat and clean and orderly but it cannot be cause it took chaos to get there i ripped them off my bed and everything is a mess and PLEASE TELL ME I AM NOT GOING TOMORROW this is not happening i can not deal with this i just want to lie and miss it all but i can’t i will proceed to port authority and be there by six am to catch the bus that will take me there and i will call my friend and i will eat at one or two of the places recommended to me rock bottom california pizza kitchen bennigans and i will write at the boston public garden and i will read a book that is assigned and take notes and i will wait until two and i will meet him and i do not want to please don’t make me please i am begging you not to do this to me it is a horrifying reality because everything that i am is based on this why i am alive is based on this and it is not something i can deal with i am going through so many changes right now that i just can’t do this and i want to just hold him close to my chest because i feel safer like that than i ever have before and i don’t want to stop thinking about him and i don’t want him to stop caring about me and i don’t want any of this but i CANNOT HAVE WHAT WE ONCE HAD, IT IS GONE.

It is gone.

I can never have that again.

Two tears have run parallel down my cheeks, one from each eye. The right one stopped at my mouth, but the left one is still going, down my chin.

i have more tears for you, but probably not tonight, as much as i need them. tomorrow.

The idea of seeing you again terrifies me. Can you tell?

Of course you can. You see everything I do.

I don’t know what I’ll do with most of my time. That terrifies me more.

This room is hot. It is so hot the air particles are more aware of their own existance.

After the chaos for which there is no music but there is sound, there is silence. Complete silence, and my limbs are suspended. My body is not mine and the movements I take are not mine and everything feels like a labyrinth. I slow down to a crawl, a mere fraction of my normal pace.

I want to stay here.

I would like to stay here, in this limbo. Here I am floating and things are dark but peaceful and nice on my eyes. I feel sorrow, but it makes me weightless and for that I am grateful. I could float here forever.

I will never have back what I once had.

I will never have back what I once had.

I will never have back what I once had...

The color is blue, in a gradient. Darker on the outside, lighter in. The direction is down.