THE DARK PLACES OF THE EARTH

M KITCHELL SEPTEMBER 2011

caves, rocks, the infinitude of forgetting, the bottom of the ocean, a complete inability to focus, losing everything, losing everything, losing everything, losing everything. people are weak but this is only symptomatic of humanity. /how are you feeling today/ /i am not feeling well/ it will be warm until the sun sets. after, only dark and cold.

to see images of men who have fucked you, to articulate the emotional response as you look from one image to another, this is what people mean when they say they've found god. an articulated sense of absence, divinity in the disjunction between representation and reality. an encouraged, active sense of forgetting. the image can never be fully considered in relation to the experience. instead there is only a depersonalized sense of shared pleasure. who would you prefer to be praying to? there are no emotions inherent within the image itself, there can only be an emotional response, imposed upon the image by the active viewer. this is not something that can be shared. this is how we can heighten the reality of empathy's lack. every human being every living thing on our planet is entirely alone.

IT IS ROCKS, OUR COLLECTIVE FORGOTTEN MEMORIES, THAT TRULY CAN HOLD LOVE.

WANTED: AN EXCESS TAKEN BACK, A MALADY, A REASON TO REMEMBER. PLEASE SEND ALL INQUIRIES TO

PHYSICALITY is the primary reason people hate their bodies. but what can we possibly mean by that? nothing. a man lies on a pile of dirt found in the center of the forest. the dirt feels good, the man understands that the dirt feels. the movement of the land, what has been always withheld. the man sinks into the ground, the man is gone from sight. he is hidden. the hidden man is god of his domain. in death there is only silence, in death is the only honesty. language is empty. our lies are hole. inside of the narrative i shout in the dark. i don't want the dark to answer back. we hold desire until the moment of climax in which the pile of rocks falls to the earth. snakes slither in the lust of reality. this is what it sounds like to be the dark. this is why i refuse to come. i suicide to another zone of existence, one where my body is forgotten and i hate the desert. i cross my legs and sit.

CONVERSATION N: The men in the room asked me to name everyone whom I'd forgotten. This is how I passed the last decade of my life. X: But why was this something that the men needed to know? N: Because it is all that matters to them, because they knew in my absence the only thing I could miss would be forgetting. X: What if I said I had missed you, that I loved you. N: I would deny it. X: You would deny my subjectivity? N: We are non-sentient, we are marks on a page. I am only an idea and you are indefinite. X: No. N: It is truth. Our names are mere variables, there is no significant referent. We are only fabrication. X: We give ourselves narratives so our lives have momentum. Some of us have no desire to give up. We lie on the earth and float.

LIST 1. The body 2. The mind 3. Television 4. Companion animals 5. The flicker of projected cinema 6. Difference 7. Hair color 8. Population control 9. Euthanasia 10. The body 11. Caverns 12. A hospital bed 13. Are you dying? 14. Rivers 15. The body 16. zero.

IN THE CINEMA: three images projected, overlapping one another, a long horizontal rectangle of light against the wall. the flicker regulates a pulse. cinema is light. the first projection: sand, poured from above the frame, cascading weight, the burnt hue of dimlight against an overly-present blue sky. the second projection: shifting colors, muted while curiously bright, pendulous shifts in tone, shock. third projection: the shadow of a man's body postured above the body of another man, the interaction of space, tears, infinitely looping, infinitely looping, infinitely looping.

CATALOG OF DEATH RELEVANT ON A LEVEL OF PERSONAL AFFECTATION

: holiday spirit : death in excess : death in disease : absence of information : died in ocean Antonio Urdialies : what happens at the end

GRAY BLUE BLACK RED WHITE GRAY BLUE BLACK RED WHITE YELLOW GRAY BLUE BLACK RED WHITE YELLOW BROWN GRAY BLUE BLACK RED WHITE YELLOW BROWN GRAY BLUE BLACK RED WHITE YELLOW BROWN PINK GRAY BLUE BLACK RED WHITE YELLOW BROWN PINK GRAY GRAY GRAY GRAY GRAY GRAY

in the absence of sense, the man tries his hardest to resist any urge related to the conceptual implications of falling in love. the world changes too often to try to approach any mode other than that of being alone. the self is the only constant, to violate this is to insist upon the weakness, a prevalent response. yet, a response that is less toxic than suicide. it is best to insist upon the maintained distance. a personal connection should not turn into a dependency. this results almost exclusively in disappointment. the only thing the earth loves is cold dead bodies. there is no room in the dirt for love. the abstracted concept is too far away. everything is a trick. people are not meant for one another. there are only meant for the earth.

THROW YOURSELF OUT AND SEE IF IT MAKES ME COME.

where is my home?

THE LARGE GLASS IN THE GARDEN... sits next to the pile of rocks near the mouth of the cave. the garden is black. dark succulents haunt cement covered in sand. the black garden is a zone of energy. it is here that the large glass sits. let us posit, perhaps, for only a moment, that Duchamp's genius was dependent upon the existence of this large glass, a transparent plane that has sat in the black garden for hundreds of years long before Duchamp's bachelor machine cracked in transit. the energy of the black garden attracts. dark energy. orgone energy. if san francisco is atlantis, this is where the large garden can be found. the large glass holds a map that allows its viewers permission towards a revelation: the revelation of being entirely separate from everything and everyone else. on the glass: the outline of a pyramid, runes, etched beasts bearing the ever-popular hardness of virility. the sun, arrows. shadows provide the years. the static glass holds movement. you understand where we are within the grand narrative of space and time: nowhere. sentimentality is a facade. life is a smokescreen. this is my love letter to every artist whose work was his own death. thank you for reshaping art into what it has always stood as a leap into the void.

the black garden, aside from being filled with succulents, held also topiary.

 The world was on fire No one could save me but you. Strange what desire will make foolish people do I never dreamed that I'd meet somebody like you And I never dreamed that I'd lose somebody like you No, I don't want to fall in love [This love is only gonna break your heart] No, I don't want to fall in love [This love is only gonna break your heart] With you With you What a wicked game you play To make me feel this way What a wicked thing to do To let me dream of you What a wicked thing to say You never felt this way What a wicked thing to do To make me dream of you And I don't wanna fall in love [This love is only gonna break your heart] And I don't want to fall in love [This love is only gonna break your heart] World was on fire No one could save me but you Strange what desire will make foolish people do I never dreamed that I'd love somebody like you I never dreamed that I'd lose somebody like you No I don't wanna fall in love [This love is only gonna break your heart No I don't wanna fall in love [This love is only gonna break your heart] With you With you Nobody loves no one

when you are a child & your parents shut their bedroom door, you have no idea what they're doing

TO TALK ABOUT HOW I AM FEELING we would have to discuss the creation of tragedy. my life's trajectory of self-evasion. sabotage. how can I even relate to another person when I can't center myself. I do not know how to navigate what I could find beautiful. what makes you happy? is it anything definite? can you articulate what you're doing? death is so completely beyond the point. sex is better as artifice. where am I. run away from everything because you understand there is nothing else. refuse to maintain a meaningful relationship with anyone. assume isolation as a standard of living.