coughing up blood

February '24 Newsletter

home, as one might see while stuck there and sick

After a week coughing up blood and a week swallowing down phlegm, it’s a disappointment to have nothing much to say.

I thought the words might build up over time. Sit in my throat and join the rest of everything else burning my vocal chords until they burst out the second I could breathe again.

But instead, I just continued to daydream in the silence. Opened my eyes with the sun, watched the days grow longer, and closed my eyes as the stars rose.

I don’t think I want to keep doing the things I did before that.

My art and I are in a constant battle.   Art wants to be made, I want to be seen/not seen. I think more often these days I want to be unmade.

Deconstructed and scrapped back together with sticky glue and paint and so many oddly shaped pieces of patterned paper and twigs and pressed leaves.

Perhaps, in the process, answering the question that keeps rolling around and around in my mind.

What good are these things if they’re not for me?

In the fight with my art, I’ve managed to punch myself in the gut over and over again until I’m coughing up blood.

Puking gagging crying spitting screaming digging my nails into my skin

It’s not worth it.

I can’t live without it.

It’s trash.

It’s all I care to have.

I will be free. Stained in my own blood. Dripping in some other thing. Smiling proudly at the skinned carcass of some project. And then maybe you can have it.

outside, as one might see after being stuck at home sick for so long

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I had the flu for half the month and it drove me insane.

I feel better now.

see you soon.

xoxo,

lash

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