Disclaimer: Many storytellers here shared vulnerable experiences, which might be triggering to some. Please see below for resources.
UCSD Students: CAPS, Health Promotion Services, your College Deans of Student Affairs, Campus Community Centers.
UCSD Faculty and staff: Faculty and Staff Assistance Program, Staff Affiliate Groups, Work/Life Health & Wellness
UCSD All: CARE at SARC,
Anti-Racism Resources - Student Affairs and EDI
Community: RAINN, National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, NEDA, Up2SD
Spoken Writing/Poetry, and accompanying whiteboard ramblings
Waking up
Fuuuuweeeehuuuewit-CLAP
You startle at the noise.
Somethings zipped by, fast, but what? Where are you?
eyes somehow covered, body contorted in a way that’s not immediately familiar…. you begin to stretch….
You do a scan of your body…. It’s bone cold, wet, you’re barely clothed, kinda cross legged, gravity is pulling the wrong way, and *SNAP*
There’s a rush of wind & noise & temperature as the snap implodes into itself & then out again. a bag is thrown from your head and a barren desert with a man on a stage materializes in front of you.
Hello.
Sorry for the excitement. Your little demons can’t resist a bit of danger. Anyways, me!
I’m a story, a role, & friend of your speaker here. you’re borrowing me from him as you think. Say hi!
But who to? Well, me. & what for? You to see!
He’s a bit mad Max and to go tit 4 tat we gotta throw it back, revealing nothing much.
Some plain old stuff from each of us laid bare to rust by arrogant trust, but ignore the dust:
It’s just us.
Actually it’s just you.
Where are you now? Do you wish to be in the desert? The cage? Your body? How can you get there? Where you are, where you’ve been.
Through me? Can you wrestle my voice to dance to your minds symphony? Doubtably.
I’ll take you now, *SNAP* to the lands between *SNAP* *SNAP*
The same rush fills your senses & then vanishes abruptly as you’re moved to this new space. No, not new. You’re back in the cold fluid. What you now figure must be bars press against your face, abdomen, & shoulder. Metal, at odd angles, & beneath you. You hear a voice, muffled, as if coming through some kind of filter.
“Oh you know them. Can’t do a single thing right but whine”
The bars begin pushing into you. They’ll pinch & tear skin soon, the way they’re collapsing into one another.
“Can’t believe this brat. Home alone all day and can’t manage a single meager task”
The sensations begin fading, & you float back. Disassociating. Observing a body crush in a makeshift cage, the sound of its demise mutated by the liquid around, beneath the deep dark ocean, as these clips keep playing.
“Stop whining. I won’t have my son acting like a helpless child.”
The bars jolt down, spraying tendrils of cloth and flesh.
“Who do they think would actually care about this pathetic self-pity!?”
The bars finish their mauling in a deep screech, vivisecting the body you just left.
And as the sourceless light of the scene fades you see eyes downcast on a mutilated face. It sinks rhythmically in the water, mumbling, “I’m sorry mom. I’m sorry dad. I’m sorry lover. I’m sorry friend. I’m sorry stranger…”
And it sinks from view.
Hey. It’s me this time. Not the narrator, actually me. I’ve caught and stopped their train of thoughts which snag and shock my clarity. Barely.
Let it be, me. Anyways…
This has been my soul, a brief traipse through its folds. Detailed in words, shoved through choked holes. Pieces lost in translation, though hopefully found in imagination, by reaching across desolation, and feeling home despite our minds separation.
But that home, illusory as it tends to be
Finds a purpose, in feeding a fire of fury.
Cause this pain, this isolation, this self flagellation
Is no black sheep, no magic “norm” deviation
It’s a status quo, lo and behold, a convention within our lenses
And when we remember, it burns, the lack of amorous consensus
So we wallow, we scream, and we lament our cruel placement,
While choosing to work behind scenes, fearful progress at our stations
And we lose hope. But…
…the pieces can fit, I promise, rose buds
Our endless toils, will soon be enough
Our dream, our connection, or endless heart-to-heart
Is starting to be possible, is starting to gather its parts,
But it’s not agent-less, we need our help,
This process is hard, and requires the examination of the self,
Our ego, our preferences, our possessions, our pests,
We must rewrite, reframe, restructure, regret.
To remedy the darkness, to relieve the confusion
We need better maps, a better way to get through this,
And as we’re on the cusp of power, on the peaks of gods
We are finding kindness, and reasons to pause.
At least that’s the hope, that I’ll chase at all costs
Come with me
if you care,
and learn to rewrite your thoughts.
Part of who I am is a chaotic and overzealous mess. So, since I still want to be as clear as possible for the sake of balanced communicative breadth as well as depth, I’ll be providing a light structure to this synopsis.
Purpose
Why do we do what we do? Who are we? What is lodged in our souls without possibility of removal? I’m a little thing full of questions, in a world full of unfulfilling answers. This piece, this spoken poetry and practice in micromemory weaving, is an exploration of the conditions of my current self’s construction. Meant to mirror the feeling of being thrust into an overwhelming storm without rhyme or reason, a condition in which I expect any audience to find meaning.
I’ve gotten ahead of myself, a tendency also embodied in the work. Yet, it’s for a purpose: I want to share my truth immersively, to cause others to really feel my structure. To give a taste of this sadistic torture chamber in my minds eye, in the hopes of striking chords with which to play a more hopeful tune. One of recognizing the deep sea's ephemerality and the truth of the tortures origins being within our own narrative. Being within us, behind a curtain blocking our self-awareness. Crafted out of our ever desperate search for comfort. Surmountable by conscious choice and the insights of those who know our struggle. The latter is my role to play, I hope.
Relevant Background
I was a weak and emotional boy growing up. Purpose unclear and surrounded by mellow, empty suburbia. Expectations suffocating with unjustified judgements ever looming. With no real pressures and access to the infinite content of the internet, I devolved into a cycle of inaction, perceived failure, and self hate. The value systems held by those around me felt incomplete, and in my first semester off at college my mind broke from hyper-pessimistic obsessions. I had convinced myself and my neural circuits that no pleasure should be mined from my experiences. That there were no components (save the love of a partner) of life to value, not while I was in them. Tainted as I had convinced myself I was. But I learned. I realized how little I was, and how little I could do, and what I needed if I wanted to be more. If I wanted to see and share more value. So I began thinking. Thinking about my thinking. Thinking about my flaws, opportunities, inner mechanics, belief structures. Trying to know myself, to master myself, to be better and bring others with me. And I found that my path was universal. I found that I have souls kindred to a degree of mutual identity. Made of so many similar pieces that the differences become insignificant. But we struggle to communicate. We struggle to see our shared struggles. We struggle to find solutions. So I study. I consume the wealth of academia and the internet. An addict and a scholar. One and the same. Trying to make up for lost time, while being a confused and disconnected mind. I’m still there, looking for a global community before its time, trying to hasten its arrival. Building a family and community in the process. Trying to let others know that I’m a kindred ship passing in the night, trying to fight the same old good fight. Yet still succumbing to the same old tricks & self deceptions I seek to expose. It’s a hard road. THE Road: The Way.
How the Work Embodies the Resilience I’ve Chosen to Be
I meant this poem and performance thereof to begin by embodying confusion and fear and the torture of a mind gone self destructive. Of the ways it uses our experiences and our traumas against us. Of how we begin to believe the story and proliferate it ourselves. More than that, and after it sequentially, I wanted to reveal the narrator of our torture. The crafter of it: our base desires. Our need for comfort and pleasure. Our chaotic mad hatters seeking tension and laughter. The ones we fail to control which puppeteer us from shadows. Not that they’re the only thing which ail us, but they are the origins of all our unnecessary conclusions. They make life so much harder, especially at scale. In our largest systems and communities. I want to call attention to them, but first I want to make us empathetic and receptive to their reveal. So I bring you from an ocean to a desert. From within a cage to in front of a stage. From in your head to mine instead. Hi. The point is to garner investment, to comment on the nature of the construction, and then to break it all for the sake of sincerity. These worlds and illusions are our home, and we can never truly leave them, but we can affirm their symmetries and communicate through their structure. Aiming to feel close to each other. In moment, in purpose, and in awareness. That’s why the work's third act is as it is. I want to use intimacy / closeness to make a plea: our utopia is possible, but we must overcome ourselves and have the resilience to choose betterment, everyday. To delineate between our components which help and harm, resolving to replace, respond, or remake as believed to be necessary. Constant vigilance amidst confusing dimensional shifts, supported by the knowledge that we are not alone in this. That we are separate but moving in the same direction, working to make the path that much more worn and treadable for the next lost soul. So thank you for taking the time to consume and interpret my content. I hope it makes you feel seen, and I hope you choose betterment, everyday.
I love you, nameless siblings.
Good luck.
