Pinprick silence

Van Gogh’s ear on the whicker seat of a wooden chair – cue the mic check. I can’t sit down. Sylvia has her head in the oven — death by domestication… I’m wondering if I can just run. Would I fall to the ground and die if I never stopped?

This is the moment –

this one. Right here.

fitting

perfectly &

exactly into nothing.

Something she said about life – the one with the guitar. Mortality, maybe – appreciation of the moment: this schizophrenic, wretched moment. Why is it that

Paris always seems like a solution? Did Pinocchio ever sever his puppet strings? Did his father hold them? Maybe this white expansiveness is disassociation. All Frida saw was herself. She wanted love, but the pain

reflected and radiated into every blue wall. I do think Pollock must have been angry — sometimes I think about which body part I would cut off, to make you

understand. I could do a photographic series on the dishes I break during arguments. They tell me something –

tea leaves at the bottom of my empty cup.

About the poem

I know I am a poet when I discover a poem in a sprig of thyme… or a freckle on my daughter’s arm. Scientists have explored a possible link between creativity and mental illness, most showing artists are particularly susceptible. It’s a romantic concept actually, like Romeo and Juliet. We stand in awe of the pure intensity of emotion that could drive a poet like Vincent Van Gogh to cut off his ear. Unfortunately, the poet Sylvia Plath gave in to the ferocity. I believe artists feel so deeply that the emotion has to physically manifest, to materialize. This poem is about the trepidation surrounding these intense emotions, and continually encountering and creating new, hopefully more healthy, ways to authentically express.