by Karen Pierce Gonzalez
Fine art taxidermy
Sorry, but if nobody ever tells you that you’re doing good, because you did that extraordinary thing one time and now it’s expected of you, then the paralysis sinks in. Because you were raised to seek it out, the praise, the attention, somebody saying well done, you did so good, you’re so good, everything will be okay because you’re so good and you’re so brave and the world won’t end because you’re just so worth it sticking around for. Okay, no, nobody said that, but that’s what you heard. It stopped you from dangling your feet over the edge of the black hole and from pitching your body into the void as readily as any rope or anchor dragged behind you. And okay, tell me about desecration, tell me about my body and my brain and how they are ripped apart by everybody else’s soft animals and am I the only one left who is sharp edges and who can’t be tender, because tenderness kills. I have watched someone be baptised and I knew then that I did not want my head to go under the water, and oh, if that’s a metaphor, then yeah, probably. If I build up enough of these metaphors and a thousand little lies that have the truth baked into them, melty middle core and you can just bite down on them, did you know you could eat me whole and then maybe I’d finally have somewhere to live? Find a home as a black spot on your lung and nothing could save you then. If all of this (and it is) is just screaming into the night at the dying and dead stars, then maybe you can understand why I’m reaching for your hand to hold. Oh, but if I make myself a lighthouse then think how many people I could save by isolating myself on these rocks.
Look –
If/when it all goes wrong and the sky starts to fall, I want to say that I called it. And if/when the matchstick finally burns all the way down, I want to say that I’m sorry, I guess. It meant everything, to spark, to make the dark less dark. But it was never going to last. Think for a moment, about the bug beneath glass, wings and legs pinned. This is that, this has always been that, always will be. And if I can’t be good, then at least I can last forever, in the shape of my body, hollowed out and displayed, and maybe when it all goes fluorescent white, then maybe you’ll understand why I was scorched earth first.
All of art is taxidermy, baby. Don’t think it about it too hard.
Charlotte Amelia Poe (they/them) is an autistic nonbinary author from England. Their first book, How to Be Autistic, was published in 2019. Their debut novel, The Language of Dead Flowers, was published in September 2022. Their second novel, Ghost Towns, was self-published in 2023. Their second memoir, (currently untitled), will be published in 2024. Their poetry has been published internationally. Twitter: @charlottepoe Instagram: @smallreprieves Website: charlottepoe.com.
Karen Pierce Gonzalez’s art work has appeared in several magazines and galleries, including The Storms: A Journal of Poetry, Prose & Visual Art, FERAL: A Journal of Poetry and Art, Nightingale & Sparrow Literary Magazine, Sebastopol Center of the Arts, and Truckenbrod Gallery. She is a 2022 National Arts Program Featured Artist (USA). Her chapbooks include Coyote in the Basket of My Ribs (Kelsay Books) and her fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction have appeared in numerous publications. Website: https://karenpiercegonzalez.blogspot.com https://twitter.com/folkheartpress https://www.instagram.com/karenpiercegonzalez/ https://bsky.app/profile/karenpgonzalez.bsky.social https://www.facebook.com/karen.p.gonzalez.14/