feralbones

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Chema Mendez aka Mendez Mendez (Dominican, b. Dominican Republic, based Bavaro, Punta Cana, Dominican Republic) - Growing, Digital Art

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Amy Beager (British,b. 1988)

Secret Passages, 2023

Acrylic, oil and pastel on linen

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Amy Beager - Fantasy Romance, 2023

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Falling Stars Observed from the Balloon, illustration by Albert Tissandier for the second edition of James Glaisher's Travels in the Air, 1871

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Mikuláš Medek (Czech, 1926-1974), Thirsty Angel V (Annunciation) - Bounded Angel, 1971. Oil and enamel on canvas, 170 x 120 cm.

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Dear void,

It's probably been a decade since I spent time blabbering about on the internet. I'm not big on maintaining some digital reconstruction of my identity or any other sort of high-maintenance persona. There was once a pretentious little blog, that I pray remains buried in time. But for years, that need to express myself, to convey my musings, longings, pains, and excitements had been satisfied by the relationships I maintained. Or by the songs I would quietly write and sing to myself. But now. . I find that I am rediscovering isolation and that my outlets are inadequate. Or if not inadequate by nature, compromised by vain urges to be appealing or aesthetic. Such is the case for whatever other internet presence I have now.

Here, at least for now, I can be honest. As I am not known, and will not be known. I can relay my sorrow, my wonderings, and my longing with abandon. Without that fear of exposure, which has gripped me. Gripped me like a white-knuckled hand around the neck of snake, which seemed so close to sinking its teeth into something worthwhile. Of course I know, I am the hand and the snake. But still, for now, I've forgotten how to let go.

I feel I am changing. It isn't all good. The pain and transformation I knew when I was younger was different. The abuse, the healing, the pain, the love. I swore, if nothing else, I would take these and wrench, sculpt, and caress them into something beautiful. That I would, in turn, become something beautiful. Eventually. All these years later, as the consequence of time has begun to truly dawn on me, I realize I desire to be more than a monument. I desire to live again, to exist, to fuck, to love, to cry, to sing and scream. I've imagined the internal self to be some ocean in which to explore, tread, and/ or drown in.

I fear now that I've been under too long.

Maybe I'm surfacing, maybe I'm sinking.

Maybe it's a void in either direction. 🤷‍♂️

[feralbones]

Virgil Finlay

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Virgil Finlay, 1952

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Illustration from A. Merritt's The Ship of Ishtar by Virgil Finlay (1949)

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A Dandelion with a Tiger Moth (detail) Barbara Regina Dietzsch

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