(no subject)
May. 29th, 2004 03:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
likethebeerWoke up last night to Gila trying to kill one of the Spots again. Oh, man.
I thought of this for some reason. I suppose I should have saved this for July 22, the date of his death, but I was just thinking....
"Sometimes I come to hate people because they can't see where I am. I've gone empty, completely empty and all they see is the visual form; my arms and legs, my face, my height and posture, the sounds that come from my throat. But I'm fucking empty. The person I was just one year ago no longer exists; drifts spinning slowly into the ether somewhere way back there. I'm a xerox of my former self. I can't abstract my own dying any longer. I am a stranger to others and to myself and I refuse to pretend that I am familiar or have history attached to my heels. I am glass, clear empty glass. I see the world spinning behind and through me. I see casualness and mundane effects of gesture made by constant populations. I look familiar but I am a complete stranger being taken for my former selves. I am a stranger and I am moving. I am moving on two legs soon to be on all fours. I am no longer animal vegetable or mineral. I am no longer made of circuits or disks. I am no longer coded and deciphered. I am all emptiness and futility. I am an empty stranger, a carbon copy of my form. I can no longer find what I'm looking for outside of myself. It doesn't exist out there. Maybe it's only in here, inside my head. But my head is glass and my eyes have stopped being cameras, the tape has run out and nobody's words can touch me. No gesture can touch me. I've dropped into all this from another world and I can't speak your language any longer. See the signs I try to make with my hands and fingers. See the vague movements of my lips among the sheets. I'm a blank spot in a hectic civilization. I'm a dark smudge in the air that dissipates without notice. I feel like a window, maybe a broken window. I am a glass human. I am a glass human disappearing in the rain. I am standing among all of you waving my invisible arms and hands. I am shouting my invisible words. I am getting so weary. I am growing tired. I am waving to you from here. I am crawling around looking for the aperture of complete and final emptiness. I am vibrating in isolation among you. I am screaming but it comes out like pieces of clear ice. I am signaling that the volume of all this is too high. I am waving. I am waving my hands. I am disappearing. I am disappearing but not fast enough." [oh--copyright, and all that]
The first time I saw this piece was Feb of 2003 (about 7 mos after he died). The museum where I was going to school had it out for the month. It was really devastating, b/c the Woj that I knew was this energetic, angry person (at least through his art), and this was so heartbreakingly sad (it's silkscreened onto a silver gelatin print of someone's bandaged hands).
I look at it, and it's interesting the phrases from it that will bubble to the surface every once in awhile, "I am screaming but it comes out like pieces of clear ice" "I refuse to pretend that I am familiar or have history attached to my heels" "I am moving on two legs soon to be on all fours." And then I think about how I "deciphered" this piece for my thesis. It was the last piece I addressed. My advisor made me reference a poem called, "Not waving but drowning." It was a poem (I forget by whom) and it's about a person who is drowning and waving their arms, but the people on the shore think he's waving. Which sounds like what Woj is saying at the end, but I don't know if Wojnarowicz knew about it, and that part I always felt was a little disengenuous. The other part was just little sheltered white girl writing about this guy who went through so much more than I can even imagine. Well, I suppose I can imagine it. It still seems so unfair sometimes that he died, only at the age of 37, and Jesse Helms is still alive.
And, oh shit, I just remember I went off on Woj last week to djymm. What's that all about. Oh, who knows, I'm probably just pre-menstrual.
I thought of this for some reason. I suppose I should have saved this for July 22, the date of his death, but I was just thinking....
"Sometimes I come to hate people because they can't see where I am. I've gone empty, completely empty and all they see is the visual form; my arms and legs, my face, my height and posture, the sounds that come from my throat. But I'm fucking empty. The person I was just one year ago no longer exists; drifts spinning slowly into the ether somewhere way back there. I'm a xerox of my former self. I can't abstract my own dying any longer. I am a stranger to others and to myself and I refuse to pretend that I am familiar or have history attached to my heels. I am glass, clear empty glass. I see the world spinning behind and through me. I see casualness and mundane effects of gesture made by constant populations. I look familiar but I am a complete stranger being taken for my former selves. I am a stranger and I am moving. I am moving on two legs soon to be on all fours. I am no longer animal vegetable or mineral. I am no longer made of circuits or disks. I am no longer coded and deciphered. I am all emptiness and futility. I am an empty stranger, a carbon copy of my form. I can no longer find what I'm looking for outside of myself. It doesn't exist out there. Maybe it's only in here, inside my head. But my head is glass and my eyes have stopped being cameras, the tape has run out and nobody's words can touch me. No gesture can touch me. I've dropped into all this from another world and I can't speak your language any longer. See the signs I try to make with my hands and fingers. See the vague movements of my lips among the sheets. I'm a blank spot in a hectic civilization. I'm a dark smudge in the air that dissipates without notice. I feel like a window, maybe a broken window. I am a glass human. I am a glass human disappearing in the rain. I am standing among all of you waving my invisible arms and hands. I am shouting my invisible words. I am getting so weary. I am growing tired. I am waving to you from here. I am crawling around looking for the aperture of complete and final emptiness. I am vibrating in isolation among you. I am screaming but it comes out like pieces of clear ice. I am signaling that the volume of all this is too high. I am waving. I am waving my hands. I am disappearing. I am disappearing but not fast enough." [oh--copyright, and all that]
The first time I saw this piece was Feb of 2003 (about 7 mos after he died). The museum where I was going to school had it out for the month. It was really devastating, b/c the Woj that I knew was this energetic, angry person (at least through his art), and this was so heartbreakingly sad (it's silkscreened onto a silver gelatin print of someone's bandaged hands).
I look at it, and it's interesting the phrases from it that will bubble to the surface every once in awhile, "I am screaming but it comes out like pieces of clear ice" "I refuse to pretend that I am familiar or have history attached to my heels" "I am moving on two legs soon to be on all fours." And then I think about how I "deciphered" this piece for my thesis. It was the last piece I addressed. My advisor made me reference a poem called, "Not waving but drowning." It was a poem (I forget by whom) and it's about a person who is drowning and waving their arms, but the people on the shore think he's waving. Which sounds like what Woj is saying at the end, but I don't know if Wojnarowicz knew about it, and that part I always felt was a little disengenuous. The other part was just little sheltered white girl writing about this guy who went through so much more than I can even imagine. Well, I suppose I can imagine it. It still seems so unfair sometimes that he died, only at the age of 37, and Jesse Helms is still alive.
And, oh shit, I just remember I went off on Woj last week to djymm. What's that all about. Oh, who knows, I'm probably just pre-menstrual.
