Constructed Within for Healthier Living

Within my own body, I deconstructed several past instances of emotional devastation, converted them into something more substantial, like rooms, initially to satisfy my desire for the concrete, my longing to control.

Room 1

Smells of a bruised sort of smoke. A den where plants migrate to die. The closet is brown and slides on a broken hinge. I have seen it snow inside this room. I have seen the snow dirtied from smoke. I have lain under the snow dirtied from smoke, as the withered plants walk around me, waiting to die. I have analyzed the wallpaper. It is always yellow. At certain times, within certain months, I have slept here with uncertainty.

However, I was complaining again of occupancy limitations.

Room 2

Resembles a view as seen through small toy cameras, such as the Holga. Slightly blurry around the sides with light leaking. A faucet drips in hues of pink. I have gathered the curtain accordingly, around its edges, this room is all around the edges and surrounded by tile spilt bathwater. Scuba gear displayed on a hook. I always forget it’s there, until last minute, right before the sea level approaches my chin, as it always does, with such precision, with such valor, with such sadness, as the curtains swim and swirl to the sides, there still remains a remarkable pink.

Diving boards and certain ledges, I imagined myself jumping from or standing still . . .

Room 3

Belongs to Marilyn’s naked back, in all blue, it is the only seemingly open object, so much that it reflects sliding glass light, with her neck to the side, at a slight arch. She is under the desert’s fish tank, her skin, flawless. I reside here, but only on special occasions can I touch, amidst the freshly cut grass that line the walls, solid green grass against the blue, a certain insulation, amidst the iguanas, can I touch, beyond sound barriers. Yes, I require it, this holding.

Banging elbows, crashing forearms, devastating my own ribcage . . .

Room 4

Allows a certain type of intimacy usually reserved for animals that only recognize other animals in the buff. I have taken it all off. I have remained here for days, in the past, on the carpet. I have placed my naked belly against the red of it, with my head to the side, arms tucked in under breasts. I have thought of being overdramatic. I have loved you before in a room of broken bicycles, somewhere Dutch, with horns honking outside along the circling roads. I have no need for windows within this silence. I have recognized my own knuckles.

Room 5

Is filled with glass. I have allowed for the fluidity of such glass without heat. I am drowning all purpose. There are items and values caught within this glass. A pair of scissors, spectacles, and rubber gloves. There are creatures, besides myself, who bend through this glass, though never touching. Their fur alive with motion. I have watched the glass slowly cube and curve outward, allowing entryways for those who are curious, for those who embody loss, for those who feign silence. Inside this room, all objects and animals have learned to breathe glass. It is important to note, in addition, that most are unhappy with this arrangement; and, I am always sorry, always mistaken.

I cannot fully explain my deep personal longing for numbers, charts, shelves, diagrams, and annotations. I can only compare it to a sickness.

Room 6

Is all white. Inside, I have spoken with strings and rope that breathe and pulse. I have spent hours packing and unpacking them. I have sliced them and they have multiplied. Because I will not use the rope for practical purposes, I cannot send them away. The rope that unravels into string, the string that unravels into thread, the thread that is light, the light that is here, dissipating, in this room, of which I compose myself, self-consciously so, as I take another breath, it diseases through my nostrils. And, you live in this? You say, or ask, as though it were a question and not declarative. And, you live in this. I repeat, and we both do, separately, on other ends of the bed as we turn over again.

However, as is the case with most systems, I encountered several flaws in the structure. These rooms, initially built to empower my own personal loss, resulted in the exact opposite by growing abstractly beyond its means, acres and acres upon itself, sprawling vertically.

Room 7


Has dismantled into Yes. You mention uncertainty. Yes, as I speak on the phone with you, my mind lapsing and folding. Yes, I agree, with my own voice echoing against Marilyn’s back, full of glass, tangled around this, blurred to the side, pink, mostly pink, in this bruised tone, always in this bruised violent pink tone. Yes, I agree, with plants forming circles around my mouth, dying. Yes. But, wouldn’t it be ideal, to shake away fall-out shelters, hiding under desks, the smell of burnt chalk, wouldn’t it be beautiful, to really know another on some certain more intimate level?

The foundation sank with pressure breaking glass, while levees broke and conversational failures pounded to the ground, resulting in panic.

Room 8

Has turned unfortunate. You say, in retrospect, as I find my own seams again, always finding something again. It is unfortunate, you say, outside this restructured composure, never really inside. And, we want so very much for this type of intimacy, this stature of please, you say, please, and I am unable to, with this loss, despite the something, always despite the please of something. And, I am still inside, still wanting so very much to be pleasing something, so much missing you. And, it’s true we’re so much more than singular within these multidimensional planes. We cannot see clearly. With my own hands. I am stuck with my own hands. Always. No matter how many stances I take within myself, I am always within, wanting so much to find someone else sitting there, someone leaning there, someone reading there, someone stopping me. Someone else beside me.

Wreckage was the inevitable causality, I understand that now, something similar to how certain insects trade forms or amphibians grow lost limbs.