Memories That Remain.
A Searching Worthwhile
Great Grandfather regards the millennium of passion, joy and heartbreak which pools at his feet. Xi Lake whispers gently to him, tracing the musings of our ancestors. Eyes smiling, they reminisce over tales harmonised from blurred light and the sway of a digital current.
Great Grandfather asks for a cigarette with a single breath. Vision faltering - grasping - losing sight of the horizon, the mellow touch between the Earth and the sky. The line blinks, solemn as it wipes truth from my eyes. The ending and the beginning abstracted; disrupted by subordinate cartography and made inanimate by fluctuating cyphers. Together we search for this boundary, the edges that are only visible in the dissipation of smog in uncertain wind.
Spring onions struggle to take root in the absence of the sun. Alone, they dream of sprouting from more than just the crevices between pixels; they dream of the soil that beckons, where the jaded lake and land embrace. The place where Great Grandfather's cigarette slumps to the ground. The pavement, the greyed ebbing, now flecked with spots of green and white. Perpetual tears that become warped – fail to grow – tumbling over – as I reach. An aroma condensed and remembered, that dwindles into the dark. Cells transformed into digits, turning inwards to feast on themselves. I pull the futile onions from these empty fields, withered leaves, withered lineage. My eyes stinging as I peck the ashes
I pick at the debris; leaving scars, a reflection of celestial tears on my back. Acne that bleeds, transferring crimson kisses onto clothing. And still, I remain hunched. Sifting through the remnants, the stones left along desiccated beds.
The inland body teases me; emulating the ebb and flow of the dawn that never arrives. The facade threatens to break as I drop pins on the surface. Punctures fall short, attempting to inflate castles from projections engraved into retinas. face reflected in the wavering screen, the juncture captures my confessions. Glimpses concealed and revealed by a restlessness, the scrutiny of the early morning search engine. Pillars of jade illuminating, building rooms full of code and stifled angst. A microcosm distorted in its design - glitching - a performance captured only in its grief.
The blue, geometric shape nestled between spindling lines on Google Maps. In this constructed version the mountains are flattened, indiscernible. The topical curves divorced from objective space and the feeling of rain as it condenses. Glass that pretends to mirror the moon, yearning to be reunited. An expression of love that is stolen and made ghostly. Submerged islands are immortalised in the gathering of secret language and the marking of impressions on an unbroken pool. Outlines recollect the decayed pagoda and stagnant greenery. It’s hard not to mourn this collapsed realm, the bridges that intertwine without transporting, that journey nowhere. A cyber mirage for
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med by fluctuating language, embedded with faltering memory.
A footprint.
Xi Lake’s storybook splayed out on the contorting cloud.
Great Grandfather asks for a cigarette with a single breath. Vision faltering - grasping - losing sight of the horizon, the mellow touch between the Earth and the sky. The line blinks, solemn as it wipes truth from my eyes. The ending and the beginning abstracted; disrupted by subordinate cartography and made inanimate by fluctuating cyphers. Together we search for this boundary, the edges that are only visible in the dissipation of smog in uncertain wind.
Spring onions struggle to take root in the absence of the sun. Alone, they dream of sprouting from more than just the crevices between pixels; they dream of the soil that beckons, where the jaded lake and land embrace. The place where Great Grandfather's cigarette slumps to the ground. The pavement, the greyed ebbing, now flecked with spots of green and white. Perpetual tears that become warped – fail to grow – tumbling over – as I reach. An aroma condensed and remembered, that dwindles into the dark. Cells transformed into digits, turning inwards to feast on themselves. I pull the futile onions from these empty fields, withered leaves, withered lineage. My eyes stinging as I peck the ashes
I pick at the debris; leaving scars, a reflection of celestial tears on my back. Acne that bleeds, transferring crimson kisses onto clothing. And still, I remain hunched. Sifting through the remnants, the stones left along desiccated beds.
The inland body teases me; emulating the ebb and flow of the dawn that never arrives. The facade threatens to break as I drop pins on the surface. Punctures fall short, attempting to inflate castles from projections engraved into retinas. face reflected in the wavering screen, the juncture captures my confessions. Glimpses concealed and revealed by a restlessness, the scrutiny of the early morning search engine. Pillars of jade illuminating, building rooms full of code and stifled angst. A microcosm distorted in its design - glitching - a performance captured only in its grief.
The blue, geometric shape nestled between spindling lines on Google Maps. In this constructed version the mountains are flattened, indiscernible. The topical curves divorced from objective space and the feeling of rain as it condenses. Glass that pretends to mirror the moon, yearning to be reunited. An expression of love that is stolen and made ghostly. Submerged islands are immortalised in the gathering of secret language and the marking of impressions on an unbroken pool. Outlines recollect the decayed pagoda and stagnant greenery. It’s hard not to mourn this collapsed realm, the bridges that intertwine without transporting, that journey nowhere. A cyber mirage for
med by fluctuating language, embedded with faltering memory.
A footprint.
Xi Lake’s storybook splayed out on the contorting cloud.
…how can I resist you?
Revealed between the hours of 12 and 2 am is this fixation. A preoccupation with being unknown to my father. The prying condensed into a repetitious browser history and grasping for superficial linkages. The mutterings of poetry in photographs // veiled recollections // the creases in an expression // a yellow album with spots, brown and purple, very 2000s Reject Shop, the curdling of the spine, the adhesive now useless. I obsess over the places, the stories where we converge; the slight coincidences which magnify fantasy. A pretend sort of letter writing, inscribed only in a disparate network.
In 2008 I planned my future wedding, an event with an unforgettable chorus. The stage was set; an absentee figure - imaginary invitations – something borrowed. It would be grand! My fathers; Colin Firth, Pierce Brosnan and Stellan Skarsgård prancing in ruched shirts, flared sleeves catching in the breeze. Singing of misplaced worries and broken feathers. The fusion of erratic tapping on a table and melodic beating of wings. I have been over it a million times and yet I am perpetually out of sync. I lack intensity, never hot, only wired with anxiety. Björn shaking his head to the wedding bells divorced from truth.
My asexuality merges with shrouded histories. Creating vignettes to hold fluctuating desires; feet stepping together, the romance in friendships, the longing to align, to find comfort the way they do. I wait for someone that means more. Wait to find the place where we hold hands. Romance as they bandage my back. These childhood musings are ever so tempting; but maybe not enough for me to unfurl? If only I were Meryl; the acting, not the singing. The wooing and flutters. An illusion fortified by a love that dispels the lake. A great passion that justifies a seemingly inevitable meeting. The aisle widens to fit my parents and a stranger(?).
It’s never the right time. Instead, I’m caught up in fables, dancing with Xi Hu. A fraud in a raincoat. Never telling too little. I feel the most when I’m stressed. I’m faster, warm, and nauseous. Are these the butterflies in my stomach, Liang Shangbo and Zhu Yingtai? The state of overwhelm.
Shame as I search.
In 2008 I planned my future wedding, an event with an unforgettable chorus. The stage was set; an absentee figure - imaginary invitations – something borrowed. It would be grand! My fathers; Colin Firth, Pierce Brosnan and Stellan Skarsgård prancing in ruched shirts, flared sleeves catching in the breeze. Singing of misplaced worries and broken feathers. The fusion of erratic tapping on a table and melodic beating of wings. I have been over it a million times and yet I am perpetually out of sync. I lack intensity, never hot, only wired with anxiety. Björn shaking his head to the wedding bells divorced from truth.
My asexuality merges with shrouded histories. Creating vignettes to hold fluctuating desires; feet stepping together, the romance in friendships, the longing to align, to find comfort the way they do. I wait for someone that means more. Wait to find the place where we hold hands. Romance as they bandage my back. These childhood musings are ever so tempting; but maybe not enough for me to unfurl? If only I were Meryl; the acting, not the singing. The wooing and flutters. An illusion fortified by a love that dispels the lake. A great passion that justifies a seemingly inevitable meeting. The aisle widens to fit my parents and a stranger(?).
It’s never the right time. Instead, I’m caught up in fables, dancing with Xi Hu. A fraud in a raincoat. Never telling too little. I feel the most when I’m stressed. I’m faster, warm, and nauseous. Are these the butterflies in my stomach, Liang Shangbo and Zhu Yingtai? The state of overwhelm.
Shame as I search.
Jade Stone (Slipping through)
They drag their hands laboriously over pure jade stone, forming pearlescent light into a tangible body. Beams that cascade, filtering between the gaps, crossed fingers, warm palms. An agile ray that illuminates parallel origins, guiding me further.
Wishing without fulfilment. I sculpt pebbles into pebbles. Weary in my efforts to set this pretending into stone. This grudge is a choice for better or worse. Grinding away with blunt tools. Sanding only to find something diluted, devoid of its magic. Attracted to the unknown, even though they know that the image, the fable, will be more resolved than the reality.
A self-absorbed carving and polishing. Bloodshot eyes trained on the divot in the landscape. a gorge with taut corners. Finding the perfect time -
to fumble.
Splinters multiply, branching into chasms that intersect. A decorative patterning that weeps into the tired surface. Fissures calling to each other as they begin the descent. Shards of jade slipping through cupped hands; lonesome detritus hoping to find resolution, to dissolve in an embrace.
The fragments call out to their mother, to the fictitious voice that converges. Maybe it would be more reasonable to talk, try to understand? To mend rather than write unsent letters.
They tumble, suspended in uncertainty and possibility. But in returning to the arms of their genesis they seize.
They look away, missing the comfort in falling; the obscurity and warmth of the sky.
Wishing without fulfilment. I sculpt pebbles into pebbles. Weary in my efforts to set this pretending into stone. This grudge is a choice for better or worse. Grinding away with blunt tools. Sanding only to find something diluted, devoid of its magic. Attracted to the unknown, even though they know that the image, the fable, will be more resolved than the reality.
A self-absorbed carving and polishing. Bloodshot eyes trained on the divot in the landscape. a gorge with taut corners. Finding the perfect time -
to fumble.
Splinters multiply, branching into chasms that intersect. A decorative patterning that weeps into the tired surface. Fissures calling to each other as they begin the descent. Shards of jade slipping through cupped hands; lonesome detritus hoping to find resolution, to dissolve in an embrace.
The fragments call out to their mother, to the fictitious voice that converges. Maybe it would be more reasonable to talk, try to understand? To mend rather than write unsent letters.
They tumble, suspended in uncertainty and possibility. But in returning to the arms of their genesis they seize.
They look away, missing the comfort in falling; the obscurity and warmth of the sky.
