TITAN SPEAKS

37 rotations around the sun and I am only just beginning fears churning to surface remind me that maturity is in the holding the choice to feel what I considered childish flow, river of tears crash, ocean of turmoil succumb, pool of try again everything dies what day is this again? made inconsequential by ubiquity am i missing the point? is there an expiration date on messages from spirit?

somewhere in the back of my mind a small seed survives as all their kin die around them. In one year, they have have grown 16 leaves, in 8 pairings. when these leaf pairings are born, one cannot distinguish between them. like ego and thought. i'm still unconvinced they are separate at all. i keep failing at therapy, for related reasons. I've heard that is impossible, but i believe.

maybe i'm missing [ ] the pairing for the stalk

inner sanctum past

dissociation lies thresh/

hold a fear to seek

isolation has no relation to proximity

not a construct

thought pattern, perhaps

emotion?

no

a void

that belies an emotion

that belies a thought pattern

that constructs material realities

proximities

ebb and flow

emotions the undertow

creating realms known

but they are not the void

isolation is the realm of our known unknowns

so what then of peace?

36 rotations, here I am

humbled

shadow stark

ready for embodiment

hard truths and all

progression ain't linear

souls ain't timebound

36 rotations, here I am

wholly

lean into the down slide

reckon with what's truly mine

anger and shame

always tossing that blame

projection land

take a fucking stand

36 rotations, here I am

honest cause losing my integrity

will kill faster than losing you to hard truths

honest cause the little things

are everything

honest cause I'm sorry

and I never say it enough

honest cause the loss I feel

festers when untouched

36 rotations, here I am

heart broken

damn strong

breath mine

bird song

new day

old bones

home bound

wisdom grows

1. we aren't talking about the real pandemic.

zombie shit, pshh, i hate the whole genre. the zombie apopolypse is here already. all around us. anyone sensitive fucking knows it; you walk by a person and feel void, a soul in retreat. 

Spring 2020

we all stayed home and got personal with our shadows

Spring 2022

no one wants to work anymore. 

we got a little fucked up for it. even those who saw it coming -- read the stars, tarot, or whatever and embraced the challenge of deep introspection -- even they got fucked up, maybe worst of all. they were meddling in a power bigger than we can contrive and control.

All these souls, slowed down just long enough, to feel something different. and now, we can't call ourselves back to the normal to which we had once been acclimated.

every place is desperate to find stable employees. 

where did we all go? now that we're back to normal, where the fuck did everyone go? 

i barely recognize myself 

in ways i love and ways that tip me into despair 

i cling to the former where i find it

dangerous game 

i cling to the latter 

dangerous game 

i try and find the balance 

but it's not a place where balance emerges

it is not a steady state 

the pace is shifting, people 

we are not going back.

Image: The Book of Circles: Visualizing Spheres of Knowledge", by Manuel Lima. It sits on my seriously vintage couch in the studio trailer, and has a vibrant cover featuring two halves of colorful spherical data maps, connecting to make a full circle.

As I geeked out to exquisite circular data visualizations, I realized I had left some remnants of my last book-making session with birch bark, well over a year ago. There, between the pages, was a (well) pressed cover page, asking to be filled.

Image: square book cover composed of four overlaid strips of birch bark. The artist name "treeowl" is typed on the upper left corner. The page is otherwise blank.

There was one starting prompt for what's to come next, typed on a page also nestled amongst the circles: "I just want to live in the world as it is, chaotic and complete."

Image: square inner book page with type-written text, slightly blotted out, that reads: "I just want to live in the world as it is, chaotic and complete". The text is repeated on a strip of birch bark that runs across across page.

every morning

i rise into myself

come out to play

or mourn

clean dishes

and haul earth

come out to myself

and drag accordingly

through the ensuing

parade of beholding

varying in grace

every evening

I clear their spells

come in to play

or mourn

hang my mask

About a year ago, when I was re-reading The Fire Next Time, I was struck by all that was held in Baldwin's question about the impact of racism in this country: "where will all that beauty go?" I jotted it down on a piece of watercolor paper, holding it's power.

Today, I find myself making home on Black-owned and tended land. Recently, I was gifted 3 stunning leaves from the garden, a vibrant blend of reds and yellows, crisp from the recent snowfall. And then I remembered the quote, and realized, it's here. It's right here. This wild, subversive yard in the heart of the suburbs. This garden, bright with color, even in the whitest of winters. The plants that grow here are resiliency embodied: willow and ivy, planted and tended by loving hands.

body split wide

open i wonder

if we are true

framed by categories

reinforced in our subversion

new photograph

same old wall

same familiar faces

and you are what, then?

render me legible

and i cease to exist

i wish it wasn't so lonely here

beautiful being

beautiful boy, beginning

it's not

reborn into the impossible frame

i exist in the spaces between

filthy fingerprints

cracks and fist-sized holes

water marks and cum stains

all forgotten

not because they aren't memorable

but rather because we lose focus

on what's real

remember us?

frameless primal bodies of infinite potentiality

remember us?

muck and soul

remember us?

everything active love

we were because

no one captured our moments, static

lining them up tidy

into staircase lineages and expectations

trapped in logical fallacy

assumed position

i refuse

i am what i be

shattered glass

shredded image

to validate my forward

and it's slowing me down

i find words

they work

but are missing

right now

let future guide

validation is forged

in daily practice

Water color, modge podge, typewriter, words, selfie (hi there)

shape-shifters

that is what poets are

we weave our words, our spells

through the ever-evolving scaffolding

of human perception

and collective comprehension

we are shape-shifters

we are the composters of that which no longer serves

we are the earthworms underground

carving the beginnings of pathways

to new frontiers

with the touching of our bodies

the orgasmic orgy of pleasuring one another

and the earthly soil below

we are poets

we are shape-shifters

You hold excellence in your being

But you've been deceived about how you've manifested your power

Fragility says "if you tear down what once affirmed me I will stand hollow"

Excellence required putting faith in the reflections of those who suffer under the means of our survival

Being told you are falling woefully short of liberating a goddamnanybody

Shattering the mirages of success, popularity, and access to decision-making power as indicators of inherent value.

And rebuilding

Reclaiming

Resurrecting your primal excellence

It won't look familiar. And it certainly won't be popular.

But you can and should be confident that the change is worth it

And your perfectly unique offerings will find a home in this place

Fragile one, don't you know our strength lies in the resilience of surviving falling apart?

How do you affirm yourself outside of toxic supremacist reinforcements?

Whose reflections are you willing to let in, gut you if necessary, to stand in true solidarity?

Don't quit when it gets hardest

The next world is begging you to be their accomplice, fully embodied

wherever sameness is projected, resist!

there is no such thing every category a biased norming of correlating conditions.

man is a self-reinforcing construct if you grow into others line of sight.

until then, the knowledge of what I am holds as self-evident truth to myself only

left to my own existential devices, I may convince myself it's just a lot of to do about nothing

confronted with another's gaze I realize just how wrong and right I am

sameness projected i now reflect back as not possible

I thought we could rediscover one another in difference, but you focused on the wrong parts

an entire universe inside my being

reduced by your surgical removal of the things you believe belong to women.

you wield the scalpel you claim to fear and I become another man made in woman's image

we can't carry on this way

I've been dishonest too long under the misperception of what defines a man

I shape-shifted into a man in sheep's clothing and I was dangerous for it

no one holds the cis white woman accountable for hubris, "rationality", hyper-productivity

alcohol fueled fucking sessions with people i didn't care to remember the next day.

I was celebrated for acting like a man because it was neutralized of perceived danger.

I affined with men. I received emotional support from women.

I reciprocated that emotional support because men do actually have that capacity - this is not an essential and exclusive purview of women.

just another self-fulfilling prophecy

don't rely on what you can observe to determine what is true about your potentiality

we are made of every no and every yes our spirit has ever encountered

how will you shape your own narrative?

I am a trans man. I am an ever-expanding embodiment of potentiality.

you, too?

left to your own devices, you might realize it's all a big to do about nothing

hand over the scalpel and let me carve my own authentic expression of correlating conditions

liberate the depths of self filtered through the veil of gender

Wax oil, birch bark, modge podge

Digging into the covid era art-making archives.

I am not your stud or femme (all the time)

I am not your daddy

And definitely not your mommy

Shape-shifting into visibility

Never producing authenticity

Living no fucks given full body laughter

In spaces beyond must do to be

I become a body free

Raised by woodland creatures

Raised on the sex of flowers and moss

I have always lived in imaginary spaces

Where I am unquestionably valid

I have always been happiest

When I quit mainstream expectation

And sometimes, I end up alone

Happy, alone, if

I let authenticity bloom

And rediscover visibility

In the reflections of people