To that one bedroom:
That one wall, right of the door, is full of storyboards mapped out in pen - black, blue, and gray. My desk is furnished with notebooks filled margin to margin with everything from seas of highlighter and personal notes to landscapes of scratches and shapes.
Remnants and ornaments of friends, parties, secrets, and fantasies inhabit the shelves. Residuum sticks to every surface it touches, conditioning them to be sustained by grief. A reliquary holds a pretentious acclamation to man-made insubstantial evidence. Regimens of aqueous femininity and masculinity purl witty, nimble, and nomadic sinews. The lamp on the end offers a low and warm glow. It’s 64 degrees in here. A halfway nostalgic energy lighting up the impressions of my feet for all the nights I spent pacing the room. Is the lamp even on?
Presuppositions, skepticism, and questions yielded through the subdivision of moments of nakedness;
“What are you afraid of?”
“How are you telling time?”
“Are you in a state of happening?”
“Consumed by your own desire to challenge and explore the edges of boundaries?”
“I’ve never met someone whose story is as multidimensional as yours - yet connects and elevates so seamlessly.”
In this room, simplicity becomes limbo. The full-length mirror on the wall becomes an archivist and curator shadow-boxing paraphernalia, razors, dollars, pursuits, and greed - my hand can’t pass through the glass. The bed is never made. I remember the note about my story, and suddenly, my memories become a history book in my hand. There’s something about that amalgamation of what is, what could’ve been, and what was, that creates a loop of contemporary and calm aching.
I put all the photos back in their envelope, close the cigar box, and slide it back underneath my bed. I look into the full-length mirror, and the history book slips out of my fingers. I continue to grieve the alive as a parallel movement with the death of my ideas.
© remy styrk 2025