Last few days I’ve been prying up boards inside my mind, windows have broken by themselves. An old voice from a non-lover returns to criticize my decisions, decisions he didn’t understand, but maybe no one could understand. I was stuck in outer space, once. Does it make things clearer if you imagine me floating there, in darkness, before maps existed? I am fighting hard against these boards and all the while I’m not sure these are the right boards. They take forever to come up, I’m doing it all by myself and I’m not sure this is how you do things. Some people build palaces, did they look like I look today once? I am frustrated by the number of my years. Why wasn’t I a smart Silicon Valley brat that did everything before age 25? All is lost and gone from that trajectory. Old cats mutter nonsense next to garbage bins outside, they had far worse shots than I and have no interest in boards. I hope that I am doing something right for once. I feel small glimpses of recognition in the shadows underneath the floor sometimes, but what am I looking for, what am I after, where’ll all these boards go once I’ve gotten them up, am I even in the right house to be doing this, none of that is clear from the flickers underneath. Has someone invented maps yet? No, the wind howls, only critics of decisions, only harsh voices mocking paths that led from space to not-space. I can’t even really tell, some days, if I’m back in space again. I resent may ancient self. I resent her for not being brilliant enough to see ahead through brick walls, for being resilient against the pounding of hurricane storms, the shrill voices of medusa. There were goals once, wrongly given, wrong advice has led so much further down wrong roads. Does the heart have an answer? What feels like a solvent of a crooked past, what feels like an antidote after a long period of stifled growth? Will I live long or well enough to make motions better- those non-movements of the non-silicon girl? These last few months I’ve thought often of the creature from non-silicon, that washed up on shore someplace and never figured out why. This hurt beast, I’ve criticized it myself, I’ve added wind to the knockers at the windows and the angry bees. Dents in the roof. Surveillance systems. Being unable to spell in one’s own language, unthinkable in some places. I’ve done so many things unwell, perhaps I’m not good at them. I agree the successful will have done only what they love for the greatest amount of time— I have crawled out of self-convinced false joys that took years to operate, I am so good at convincing myself I am joyful. This prying up of boards- I am so willing and able today, but will I have done all this prying to have found no more sparks beneath? There are so many boards left in this floor.

oct 14 16

This is the beginning of a new heaven, never seen before, never heard of, unwitnessed. Harness me, said the Never. Harness this.

Cleaning out the mind. Remaining vigilant, avoiding confrontation. Mitigated normalcy, figuring out primes. Defacing architectures with intention of rebuilding frames for faces later. Purpose avoided, monsters interrogative. Suppose demons exist, suppose we are there futures, after long-grappling with better fondness for realities. Wrestlers against reality, the problem ever being with the selection of reality. Sorting through of options, clearing the way for digestion and interpretation. Arguments broil under unrecognized relationships with reality. Simple errors, mistaken for true points of conflict: the building up of structures made of thought, identified as the world by only one. Many live alone in our towers, many more share our towers with a few others, found online or in a heap of viewers of the same shows, the same posters, the same advertisements.

•

Keeping a clear head. Keeping it clear because it doesn’t want to all on its own. Dusting off the old recordings, throwing out the records that only had twisted material on them to begin with. This effort, to record, to collect, to sort, to identify- the brain as a library instead of a roller coaster. Figure in for poison-sprays from high-lines and hovercraft, making a thick dust of their own, indistinguishable at times from actual sound, and you have yourself a past, a where-from for a person. Where is only ever half the story, when is only part of half. Stopping fire before it starts, that’s the puzzle of every growing / grown person. Where is the dust-catcher for a whole generation, let alone a world? Pesticides grow old and stuck-on, become large territories inside a person.

Thoughts on Instagram and maturity->

-greed for fame

-followers as a kind of currency

-numbers as validation, validation as self-acceptance

Everything here is from Kathleen M. Kralowec. See www.KathleenKralowec.com for finished projects and contact info.