WE'RE ALL MAD HERE

Part of why I love Muzan in KnY is because I relate to him. While his objective actions in the story are obviously evil, I think he’s a lot more sympathetic than the writers want him to be. This essay explores Muzan’s backstory, his treatment by the narrative, and my feelings toward the use of his character. As such, it contains MAJOR MANGA SPOILERS. THIS IS YOUR WARNING. This piece is not trying to “cancel” KnY for ableism or to say anything about the views of the mangaka/anime screenwriters/etc. I enjoyed KnY, and if you’re thinking about giving it a shot, I do recommend it. This is just a self-reflective piece that I wrote to process my own experiences with chronic illnesses in my own life and analyze the nuances of a piece of media that I love.

TO BIND- wrap in black thread, drip wax over, or seal in a jar and hide it in the dark.

TO BANISH- burn an effect to ash and sweep off the back door step, cast it out a window, or bury in the ground and spit on it

TO ENCOURAGE-  plant it by the front door/steps, bury by a window, or place it on a windowsill

TO HIDE- place in a jar painted black, cover with cloth and bury, or wrap with a ribbon

TO CLEANSE- bury it in a bowl of  salt, burn herbs and pass through the smoke, or lay it in a moonwater bath

TO GLAMOUR- leave under the full moon, hold its reflection over a mirror with herbs, or 

TO WISH- place before a candle and blow it out, drown a coin in water, or let seeds blow into the wind

TO COMMUNICATE- (with a spirit or deity) - anoint a candle, leave out offerings, or open the front doors and windows

TO WARD- leave part of the spell in four corners, draw lines around the protected area, or plant an object of projection in the north, east, south, and west edges

TO CURSE- spit on it, drag your nails down it, or stick sharp things in it

TO DISCOURAGE - plant or bury by the back door, or burn to ash

TO JINX- say it three times out loud, or say a word the same time as someone else

TO MANIPULATE - use wax, use poppets, or tie several strings to pieces of an effect

A possible future history of loving you: When they exhume the fossils of our memories together, the scientific community will engage in debates unseen since biopsychiatry. since the IQ test. since string theory. since the discovery of the atom.

> 2:20 AM

when i was ten we were in the desert and looking at the shined faces of petrified trees. in the world of red, here was something green. we all sat on top of a table while eating so the scorpions underneath could pass by without violence or sympathy. 

when they unbury us, when they make us immune to the grave - what unravels inside of the coffin? are your fingerprints pressed into their soft books of violet desire. am i made a monster through the shape of my jaw. did i write, as a spirit, Leave and Be Left, a cycle in candlesticks. 

> 2:30 AM

I dream about picking out soap with you. I dream about a palace where they perform careful surgeries to turn certain organs into stone. To remove what makes us weak and makes us human. I dream about you dancing under a waning moon.

i hold the desert sun as it sets between my kneecaps. the amber leaks through. 

> 2:43 AM

It never comes before we need it to, but sometimes it comes after it could have saved us. Every motto is the same motto, in my dreams. 

Ad astra per aspera. I think I knew you once before I was supposed to, maybe many times. I think you were the paper cut I got in third grade, and you were the bandaid lovingly applied. I think you were the strawberry milk I drank at the science museum cafeteria, and you were the sting of humiliation when I laughed so hard at my babysitter’s joke that it came out my nose. 

Maybe, also, you were the first bite of fine expensive steak, and the first piece of gristle I had to wincingly secret away into a napkin. Do you remember if you were the wanting? the fulfilling? The leaving? The returning?

> 3:27 AM

through hardship, to the stars 

 through the swell of tide and memory. through wanting you and never having. through the saturnine crux of our hands on soft bedsheets. i think i coveted you before i understood the term “coveting”. i think i knew you the first time i explored aching. 

 is it this, then? the swell and the forgetting? the coming and the going? the girl and her hair? the never-knowing? is it this, then? a secret in an old haunt, a fortune of no-more, a calliope of ghost song. 

>4:01 AM 

Through hardship, to the stars.

I used to think the glow behind my closed eyes was full of sunspots and kaleidoscopes. Now, the dark is full of constellations, unfinished stellar charts—Perseus your hand shyly hiding your face, Cassiopeia the shape of your body moving beneath mine, and Leo not a lion but the hook and pull of a love that should not be so easy or so hard

i dream about angler fish. i dream about a world where we all have horns. i dream about heartrates. i say - are you coming? will you come home?