metal on my tongue.
an attempt to make the private public, as it has “terrific repercussions on the pre-invented world� (David Wojnarowicz)
by Simon Reckendrees, August 2019.
I can feel the metal on my tongue the handwritings of all my lovers are written on it it’s a typography that’s unique to us. it doesn’t matter if they are in the future or in the past future & past is a distinction that people make to excuse their behaviour in the now they make mistakes neither does it matter if they are real or not they come & go, the same as I come & go out of their lives, but we share some parts. these shared parts are neither my life or theirs. It’s not like pressing pause on life, it’s more like recording it on a tape. these parts count. sometimes, when I feel an increase in emotional connection with someone, I try to stop myself because I am terrified of the impending pain of rising with them. she sneezes two times I suddenly understand that sneezing is one way to be totally free, another way to jumping in the air, as David suggests. Your body takes complete control over your mind, you can’t stop yourself you throw your hands up in the air your eyes close or are wide open, seeing the pores of people’s skin from metres away the hair on your knees bends upwards & curls and your mind, your mind becomes free from worries for a brief second. and then, you’re here again. I sneeze as often as I can.
I go to the same exhibition almost every other day just to see the change in people. The people have become increasingly younger, with their cuffed trousers & tucked-in shirts. When certain images flash on the screen (naked), there’s a sexual energy filling the room. Some poor souls leave the room, just to be reminded by what they just saw in the form of gelatin silver prints. The remaining people are young and either on the search for something greater than themselves or an affirmation of the experiences they had in this city. It drags them down but lifts them up simultaneously. It’s the ambiguity of this place. they pick up their coat & it looks like they’ll vanish behind it. The wind blows through the sleeves, they banish a ghost. I want my body battered sometimes, I want it to reflect my broken state inside. I read a sentence that you can’t change people’s perception of you, I think that’s wrong. I can wear eyeliner & eyeshadow and the perception will change, they will now see a queer, instead of what they perceive to be a “man”, “boy” whatever the fuck they call me on the streets or in the cafés, bars, pubs, classrooms, my DM’s, Tinder. I am so sick of it. no one pays attention anymore. What, do you think I put on these little dots on the side of my eyes just for another straight to misgender me? It’s a carefully crafted persona I put on each day. my body is in a constant state of fluctuation. Not between left & right, above or below, but in the comforting vacuum of space. but I am still here I think of David Wojnarowicz’s Science Lesson, dated 1982-1983 and how it was old for 708.500 US dollars. 708.500. seven-hundred & eight-thousand-five-hundred.
it is estimated that 675.000 people died since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. add the hundreds of thousands that have died because they are queer. There is a genocide happening & I have this metallic taste on my tongue.
My world has been inhabited by losses lately. A “loss” is a small black creature that turns up on the sidewalk sometimes, just as I walk. It stops you for a brief moment & reminds me of something, so I never forget it. The creature only appears in certain locations, making it not a major part in my life but still leaves an impact on my daily life, my routines. The losses feed of memories, I like to think they all gather on my bed at night & drill a hole into my head which they fill with concrete after extracting the memories (remaining a balance in weight, as the memories & concrete weigh roughly the same). When I step on a loss or try to scare it away, it lets out an abominable scream that only I can hear, filling my eyes with tears & making me dizzy for a few steps, nearly tripping and falling. As of yet, I don’t know how to make the losses my friends, or at least a healthy part of my life. my emotions became a major casualty in this shift like two concrete floors, rubbing against each other at the most uneasy speed you can imagine I think everyone has that one speed they cannot fathom yet it appears in one’s nightmares over & over & over again.
I had these dreams as a child. A ball rolling at a speed that is not possible in reality, not accelerating, but staying in the same motion. The concrete floors rub faster, the friction is emitting heat, the heat is creating anger, but because there is not space, the anger is directed at myself. In my dreams my head bangs against a wall, bangs against a rubber wall, bangs against a concrete wall. My dream body gets chased by balls the size of a house moving at such an uncomfortable speed Not accelerating a physically impossible speed. every time I kiss a new person, there are two possibilities: (1) I move my hand to the back of their head, the space between my middle & ring finger resting on their hairline, (2)
I move my hand onto their hand.
I think the reason I do this is, I think that the person is the manifestation of time & space. And I just want to hold onto it so desperately. My world is rumbling, the screams & joys of hundreds of thousands, millions of people who felt it before me are reassuring and terrifying me. When my body touches the other person’s body, I feel my world liberated & I think of what David said, but I feel further than the history of that body, I feel the future too, swallowed in brief pauses that fill the world around us with life again before we both retreat to our own shared experience of past, present & future. she takes a brief drag from her cigarette. And I feel metal on my tongue.
I feel the metal on my tongue. the anger, joy & loss I carry inside my body each day form a field of crops (watch them grow) I don’t know what kind of world I inhabit anymore on most days, it feels like I merge with it growing with it, because the field of crops are also watched & taken care of by most people the kids (we) are looking out for the sea the kids (we) are looking out for the sea the kids (we) are looking out for the sea we spread our legs we kiss each other in the darkness on walls in bars & in backyards we kiss each other & look out for the sea. we hope to find each other in the sea, and in the fields and finally, we can kiss & fuck each other but without worry, with comfort & understanding, with nothing but understanding for the anger, joy & loss understanding for the metal on our tongue because we have found --and we are still here