It is said
that disagreements over matters of perception and perceptions of matter might be reconciled if one quits the business of ornamenting language about them, the press release read for a new hot-shot abstractionist picked up by her gallery. She put down her white wine to take a swig from her aluminum water bottle before swilling the […]
“You promised my baby would come out alive,”
the child’s mother wails. “But he’s here, right in front of you,” the therapist insists, pointing at a plastic comb, a pile of muddy clothes, some underwear, eyeglasses. “But this isn’t the same, those glasses aren’t even his.” The child opens the office door, squishing his way across the high-pile carpet as if atop a […]
“I said, do you feel external?” “Yes.”
The child asks his mother from where they are coming and she says, “Please, just look ahead.” →
“Do you feel my hand?” “Yes”
“Do you feel focused?” “No.” “Do I feel external?” “…” →
Pacifier
“What good is time to a text?” she tried to ask the critic. “To a check?” “No, well, also yes. To a text, I said. It’s not that I don’t believe you, trust me, I’m slightly dyslexic, it takes me a while to read, but I’m not convinced that this whole ‘sentential temporality’ thing is […]
—
“I dunno, recalling the qualities of a thing isn’t the same as sensing it?” she upspeaks uncertainly back. “Sure, true, but with your son, well, normally it’s the perceived that makes perception but-” The child again closes his eyes and smooshes shut his ears and he can’t feel his skin, almost can’t hear the grownups, […]
The woolly red carpet (xi)
keeps the child’s attention as the adults debate around him. He brings his eyes into focus where the carpet meets the wall, and then returns to its center, aware of its existence by virtue of finding where it doesn’t exist. He closes his eyes and gray surrounds him, annihilating the distance between him and his […]
sense (noun) (1) a meaning conveyed or intended; (2) (c) the sensory mechanisms constituting a unit distinct from other functions (such as movement or thought); (6) (a) capacity for effective application of the powers of the mind
“I don’t mean to cause you undue concern,” the pediatric therapist says, “but it seems he lacks the concrete liberty which comprises the general power of putting oneself into a situation.”x It can’t be said that the mother is shocked. “Be that as it may, how can we be certain he’s not better for it?” […]
“To be a body is to be tied to a certain world (ix)
and I’m just over it,” the artist complained to her analyst. →
Love Poem
Her fist bloomed in the critic’s ass. “This is where we’ll keep your baby,” was her fanged whisper. What inspired the ‘we’? he wanted to know but was too afraid to ask. She felt sick to her stomach and opened her eyes. →
