2022

Plant & mineral dyed secondhand fabric (logwood, fustic wood, iron, weld), thread, batting

23” x 23”

Collection of Rebecca Grace

Did you ever die for a millisecond? Did you ever eat a weed gummy after an intense weekend that involved spreading your dad's ashes in the gulf of Mexico, after carrying them around from house to house over the span of 15 years, even losing them at one point, then finally spreading them with one of your 4 brothers and mom, who was wearing a leopard print bathing suit, in an inflatable raft into the warm waters of Galveston, not far from the shoreline because it was harder to paddle out than imagined, and the ashes ended up in your mom's face including her mouth, and your brother tells her she deserved it. The next day you visit your other brother at his halfway house and take him to Mcdonald’s for lunch where you watch him devour a big mac with all the sauces running down his face and hands while five TV monitors are airing a zombie show with people being eaten and blood spraying everywhere. Meanwhile, a Mcdonald's employee whose a dwarf is waxing the floor, and you know that their height shouldn't matter but it does because you grew up in the 90s watching Twin Peaks. Afterward, you drop your brother back off at the desolate halfway house where, thankfully there was one big tree in the yard because it’s hot as hell because it's Houston and the heat is fucking oppressive but at least that tree is there to provide shade while you trim your brother's fingernails because your mom asked you to because he's too mentally far gone to care so you do it with sweat streaming down your face and it kind of makes you gag because his fingers are cigarette stained and gross and still have Mcdonald's sauces on them, and for a moment you share a sliver of your childhood, then you say goodbye knowing you may never see him again but he tells you he'll see you at a party because he may actually see you at a party because he lives in another dimension because they say he has Bipolar Schizoaffective Disorder. You drive away in your first car rental while visiting Houston because you want to be in control and you think you've made it out free from falling apart but then you end your visit by eating a weed gummy with a childhood friend but the gummy was part of a larger mass of melted gummies so you don't actually know how much THC is in it but you eat it anyways and well..... the THC really settles in there after an hour and you begin to not feel right and then you begin to feel like you may actually die from a panic attack and you beg your childhood friend and her husband to take you to the emergency room. Meanwhile, you're thinking about how you're a grown ass adult with a child back at home in Baltimore and you just can't die for the sake of her future. Your friends don't take you to the emergency room because they convince you it is not a hospital any human would want to be in, so you stay put, then you beg your friend to find the Pixar movie Finding Dory because you remember another friend saying it made him feel safe to watch animated movies and you remember Finding Dory was a sweet movie but you're so high that you begin to think you are Dory looking for the family you lost and you really begin to unravel all parts of yourself, and you realize that actually you are not in control and that your body is and it is on its period and it wants to vomit and it wants to cry and it wants to snot and it wants you to shit yourself and wants you to feel like you have wads of cotton in your mouth and it seems like your friend is having a very different trip than you, even though she ate from the same big mass of melted gummies. As you are writhing around on your friend’s kitchen floor, which is made out of cement, your friend stands over you, and asks,

“How does it feel? How does it feel to fall apart?

You’re not a rock, you know.”

Then she convinces you that you need to go outside, that there is a special meteor shower happening, but the moment your back hits the grass and you look up at the expanse of the sky your heart stops and you shoot into outer space faster than you've ever imagined something could go and you almost, as instantly, come back into your body, and throw up. Your childhood friend, who you've been to hell and back with over and over again, scoops you up into her lap and begins cradling you like a baby, and tells you to let go, to just let it all go.

So you finally do

and you just bawl and bawl like you were just born.