Audrey Kawasaki
The shadow of death has bullied me for too long now. He’s made my favorite dead ancestors untouchable. I know there are ghosts standing around me, but I can’t see them. They would hug me and pat me on the back, but all I can feel is alone. I see something sometimes. But they are unrecognizable. Death changes you. There are words I can't translate without them. There are maps I can't read. Things are happening inside of me that I can't sort because I can’t hear the dead explain. When I became an orphan it was much later in life. As a child I felt like I was already sitting Shiva. It's almost as if my parents’ dead wouldn't let them live even before they were actually gone. Each of my parents followed the long black dresses and limousines. By the time I learned to breathe and let the sunshine fill me, they were gone. Of course. I mourned their dead, too, because it was the only way they would notice me. I got as much as they would give. My mother thought only of her father and her brother who both died in the taxi cab accident when she was a young girl. My mother's stepmother who abused because she already had too many kidssent her off to live in foster care still broke my mother in two when she died years later. It seems that even those who abuse us are missed when they are the last parent you have. The last connection to the dead whom you miss most. And my father had his grandmother who helped raise him from the time he was born. She was murdered by her husband who did not haunt my father. She is my name. And she haunts me. And now that my father is gone, they take turns darkening my doorway and slipping into my dreams just before the alarm goes off. And they always say the same thing but I can't say it. I don't know how to make those words. They are ancient words from another country. The country that my grandmother was convinced to leave by the man who would eventually fill her organs with poison. My father's father is the one who found his mother. And when he found his father he took care of him. And so he went away as well. My father's mother, who was the child of the woman who died, died inside that day. She lost her mother and eventually her husband. And my father lost it all. And so both my parents were raised in foster care for different reasons. And that's where they met, living in the same home with the same foster parents. The man of the house was cruel. And he was inappropriate with my mother. They also spoke the secret language. The language of the past. The language that they all love to speak to me now even though they never taught me how to speak it. But I have to listen. And I can distinguish between different forms of pain spoken in that peculiar language of theirs. There's a different pain that came from my mother versus the one that came from my dad. My mother's pain tried to find a way to paint or dance or sing. It cried while watching documentaries of the Holocaust. It would phone in daily orders to the liquor store. It passed out one night until it stopped breathing, and then when her pain eventually woke up she was no longer the same. All the fire was gone. All the passion was gone. And the only thing left was a wall of romance novels that she read everyday and the remote control to the TV where she would get every Jeopardy question right. Every night. My mother's pain was a lifelong irony that reaches up from the black and white photograph of her and her brother sitting on the back porch before everything went horribly wrong. My mother's pain finds its way into the large pot of vegetable beef soup that she would make for me anytime I'd come to visit. I ate so much of it that sometimes it felt like my stomach would tear open. That was her pain. The pleasure of her food was so great that it hurt me. That was my mother's pain. But my father's pain was a quiet long walk everyday no matter the weather. He'd walk to the bank or the post office or to the store to buy a newspaper. It made him healthy. Doctors always remarked how healthy he was. My father's pain was the fact that the walk helped him live long enough so that he never stopped feeling the pain. And the dead who speak to me spoke to him only he knew how to speak back. But he didn't. He never spoke back. On those long walks he would think of all the things he would have said if he would have. But by the time he got back home his lips were sealed so stubbornly tight.
Tucked in the corners of my apartment and on the window ledges and in various spots throughout my kitchen, I have things growing. I have things that are potted with dirt that I water. I have things that fall over and things that reach out and things that spread out. And it’s all green. If I were to find a way to get these things to hold hands, they probably could stretch from my front door to my balcony. I'm on the 14th floor, and these vines would not be strong enough for me to climb down like Rapunzel. Because Rapunzel had been hardened. She’d been through trauma. And not much was going to cause her to break. So anyone could travel up and down her hair. But these plants of mine are sweet. They are innocent. They are not like their brothers and sisters in the wild. Those plants are rough. If those plants could speak or grab things, they would curse and they would throttle. They would molest people if they could because they have seen trauma as well. I don't want my plants to ever know such horror. But I have to live. I have to stay alive. I have to keep myself safe so that I am always here. Because if I'm not here, I know nothing good will happen to my plants. Maybe they will wind up in the wilderness. They can't survive in the wilderness. They don't have the instincts. I tell them that daily. I have seen a fern look at me cross eyed. Sideways. A little disbelieving. But I know that my plants are not hard. They can't take it. I know that my philodendron needs to be dry before I water it. And my fichus likes light but not in her face. I know my plants. I sing to them. I sing my favorite show tunes. "Wouldn't it be Loverly?" spills out of me and pours all over them. I know they love my singing because look at them! They're thriving. I really throw myself into my original version of "I Cain't Say No." But they will only join in when I sing "Ooooooklahoma." We're like a little community theater in here. I don't know why, but I never feel more comfortable than when I'm with my plants. I've had people ask me why I don't have more but the truth is the investment is enormous. Each plant matters to me. I care. I know them. I name them. In fact I don't make up the names. I get their names from them. I listen to them. When a plant first comes to me, I sit and listen. I turn off my music. I take deep breaths. I undress. I want the plants to know that I'm just as naked as they are and that they can trust me. And I won't send them to the wild. I won't let them be a part of that nonsense. They can breathe my carbon dioxide. I'll make plenty of it. Sometimes I have a party just so I have more people here to exhale. But usually I'm alone. I take deep breaths. I like to feel the oxygen they make. It's a connection that I don't think most people think about. They are inside of me, and I am inside of them. Our relationship is reciprocal. Our relationship is dynamic. I couldn't say that about any humans that I know. I don't feel that way about any boyfriend I've ever had. Or family members for that matter. Less and less I visit the grave sites or bring a casserole dish to the latest wedding. I haven't been on a date since Oliver was just a sapling. He's a spider plant who hangs over my bed and has seen more of me than any man, that's for sure. He's a better lover because he listens . He gets what he needs but he doesn't make a show of it. He's never made a demand of me once. His green fingers stretch down all the way to the pillow of the partner I don't have. His tendrils are thick and strong and I know that he is healthy. He is mine. And when I'm alone in my room with him because he is the only plant I keep there, I sing something other than show tunes. I sing Janis Ian. I sing the Bee Gees. I sing the songs that my mother taught me because she sang them as she sat on the end of my fluffy pink bed and tried to put me to sleep. There were no plants in my childhood home. No man either. It was just the two of us. It was okay for me to sleep naked. That's what I tell Oliver. I tell him that I feel as safe with him as I did with my own mother. And I lean into another song.
"Talkin’ to myself and feelin’ old
Sometimes I’d like to quit
Nothin’ ever seems to fit
Hangin’ around
Nothin’ to do but frown
Rainy days and Mondays always get me down."
And I know that Oliver, like the other plants, sometimes gets tired of hearing me tell him that he's better off here with me because I know that's exactly what my mother said to me when I tried to leave her home. She sang a fence around me. A cage. And I never moved out. She died. And I'm still here. There’s a new bed. Lots of plants. Still safe. Still naked. Singing my heart out day and night. Feeding my plants exactly what they need when they need it. At least somebody in this wilderness is going to be happy.
I met you in awkward circumstances and kept you that way the entire time I've known you. I've never let us have something smooth. We were angels together. We served the needy. These were the people who could not get up out of their chairs or open their own peanut butter or even clean themselves completely. And so that's what we did. You were my angel. You were married of course. Of course you were married. I was never good at timing. But that didn't stop us. Nothing was going to stop this. This is what I call the inevitable for me. Putting myself into the footprints of the person who could be your lover. Wearing myself like gloves or a bodysuit. Or a hat. All of these things would eventually belong to you and cover you and sleep in your bed with you. And yet I would still be someplace. Because I would still find something else. Because I was always searching somewhere. And I put you through so much. I made choices. I found my crazy love someplace else, and that crazy love wanted me so I let you go. I did it for my crazy love. And you were my sunshine, love. When is the sunshine not in the sky somewhere? That was you. And when my crazy love made me crazy, I picked up the gloves again. I picked up the hat. And I came back to you. And we built and we built, and we made something with wheels. And we found the rest of the country together. We picked up friends. We picked up trouble. And we found a herd that we nurtured and cuddled and lived with until it became a mess. Naturally. What else was new. I went back to my crazy love. But I didn't leave you. This time I didn't leave you. I just left your bed. Because I couldn't be with the herd. I couldn't be with the wheels. I needed to be punished. And that was never your style. You could never punish me. That's why I won’t leave you. Because you are my sunshine girl. My kaleidoscope of Instagram hairstyles. My bud buddy. My talking without talking lover. My little girl. And when the crazy love had to go again, we moved west. We found another home. Without wheels. And you open your eyes when I am already awake and suddenly our bedroom is full of sunlight.
I've never had a worse lover than the moon. And if anybody is listening, he stalks me even to this day. Some people think of the moon as a woman, but he certainly didn't present himself as that to me. He said little but was always looking. You know that's a man. Eyes always open. Always inspecting. Always swallowing you. Stuffing his brain with the many pictures he's taking of you. Because he wants to see you. He wants you to be something that he can see. And when he sees you, he wants to see the things that make him glow. And he did glow with me. I'm not afraid of being seen. But I've never had a partner as selfish as the moon. A true narcissist, without a doubt. All of the red flags were there. It was a fast romance. He seduced me. It was one hell of a sweaty romance. It was day after day. Every night. Something new. He engaged me. And everything he said and everything he did was exactly what I wanted but didn't know. And every time I was with him I was reminded of just how inadequate every other lover had been. Because he opened me. He found my history. He made the connections. I wasn't afraid to confess the secrets I had. The desires that no one would let me speak much less have. He didn't see me as a victim. He saw me as a surprise. He saw me as something better. And he had seen them all. His list was long. And of all the bodies he could be touching each night, he touched mine. And it was what I needed. It was what I couldn't find. Because if I tell my story, I become fragile. I needed protection. But not the moon. He didn't protect me. He wasn't afraid to put his hands on me. It was as if he was unraveling the strands of my hair to the point that he was letting me free myself. Like I was being untied. And everything that I had been before was suddenly a costume, and I could step out of it with the moon. And in his light, it was okay that the line between the things that happened to me and the things that I wanted was barely there. And the brighter he would glow, the less the line could be seen until eventually it all was gone which is something I never found anywhere else. No one else ever let me hug the past with the present. But with the moon, it was all he could do. It was all I could do but to want to be what he needed. And that was where the moon became the dead rock that he actually is. Because in the end everything he did for me was what he did for himself. He freed me so that there were no ties. There were no connections. There was no one who could see me but him. I was so bright in his light. I was invisible. Maybe when you look at the moon you can see me as a faint shadow on his surface, but no one can see me whole. And that's the way it was between the moon and me. And then one day I told the moon that I wasn't going to see him that weekend. And I discovered that all I had to do was close my eyes. And the moon would disappear. The night I closed my eyes so tight that I felt the moon sink into the city was the first night in months that I slept without fear.
Just so it's straight, everything was ripped away and then you decided that even after your death you were going to stay and grow and feed off of me? Is this your plan? Because as plans go, I can say that this seems like a compelling one. See for many years you lived inside of me. You were in my head of course but you were also inside of many other parts of me. I was very young. And you found ways to get inside of me that have always been forbidden.You knew how to do it. And it was terrible to everyone, but it was never terrible to me. Somehow by being inside of me certain things that were supposed to grow up grew down and other things that were supposed to turn white turned yellow. Walking and talking I seemed just like everyone else, but having you living inside of me meant that so many parts of me never really learned how to work. You were my spine. You were my desire. You were my fear. And nothing was really mine. The only thing that was mine was my sense of devotion to you. I was devoted to the fact that you were invading me. And I got to the point where I couldn't live without it. I couldn't live without you being inside of me. And then one day out of the blue, there was no you. You were gone. And the only thing left inside me was the skeleton of you. But it turns out that the trick was mine. I became the magician. I became the necromancer because I found a way to keep you alive. And all of the things you used to whisper to me I could now whisper to myself. And all of the ways that you used to twist and turn me, I could now do it without your slithering body rubbing up against the insides of me. I could slither. I could rub and find others to rub. And so when no one was looking, I stole your skeleton from your grave and I put it back inside of me. And surprisingly it has continued to grow. It is still having an effect. It is still in control. And while it whispers and sings and guides and pushes, everything else about me falls apart. Because there is no plan other than you. You are all that makes sense. And yet no one else understands you. Somehow we developed a shorthand. And the language that you made up inside of me when I was so young is a language I can speak to myself. In fact I have brought on others to speak with me. We are a committee. And when I effortlessly switch back and forth between the different members, there are no misunderstandings. Not amongst each other. However, having you replace my skeleton with yours has indeed proven to be a problem because I can't live inside of myself the way you could live inside of me. And when I try to inhabit the body that no longer seems to be mine, I get myself into a lot of trouble. Because the world doesn't understand how that can happen. The world can't see you. The world can't hear you. And what the world knows of you the world condemns. I don't blame it. I understand it. But I can't make sense of any of it. And the world condemns you and ultimately condemns me. And there is no space for me in the world. And I can't make sense of what the world is trying to say to me. It looks at me with fear and horror and misunderstanding. And even those that would reach in and try to help leave me more damaged. It's treachery. Your skeleton is more painful than ever and yet I can't imagine my life without you. You became my life long ago. And even with you gone, you still are me. And I slither just like you inside of me with my tongue piercing anything that looks like it might still be alive.
Do I make myself beautiful or is this beautiful because I am? You with all the eyes will see this and you will think, I wish I was her. Really? Why would you wish that? What on earth could possess you to look at this thing that I've made out of myself and then come to the conclusion that you want to be me? I know that I can make myself into anything I want. I know that I show up here and there in everything I make. This piece or this part. When I look at this creation, I see bits and pieces of the other things I've created but I don't really see me. The markings are right. The expression of my face is certainly one that people who know me can recognize. The color. The shadow. The penumbra around the bun. I don't know? Still, I don't think it's me. It's a strange thing that I can do. I don't know how many people can do it. And maybe this is where the envy comes from. I can take everything that I am and make myself into the things that I am not. And I can put those things together and make something that's greater than anything I am. And it's less than anything I am. It's as if I am a flower that is blossoming inside out. Imagine the pedals are underground, heading towards the center. Towards the hot middle of the Earth. And yet the things that are above are sienna. Sepia. Brown. And the flower you see in front of you is an illusion of a flower. Because you can't touch it, can you? If you were to reach out it would just hit the surface of the canvas. And you would realize that everything here is the product of a creator. And who has ever thought of the creator is fair or honest?
Author: Derek Letsch
Artist: Audrey Kawasaki
Artist Bio
Audrey Kawasaki is a Japanese-American artist, born and raised in Los Angeles, where she currently lives and works.
Kawasaki grew up reading Japanese manga comics, which inspired her to draw from an early age. She started taking after-school fine art classes at Mission Renaissance in her late teenage years. There she learned the basic foundation of drawing and painting. She attended Pratt Institute in New York after graduating high school, but left after two years without completion of degree. She started professionally showing at various art galleries in the US and internationally since 2005.
Kawasaki’s work contains contrasting themes of innocence and eroticism, conveying the mysterious intrigue of feminine sensuality. Her sharp imagery is painted with precision onto wooden panels, the natural grain adding warmth to her enigmatic subject matter. The artist’s creative influences include eastern as well as western traditions such as Art Nouveau and Japanese Manga comics. She paints sultry, seductive and uninhibited female subjects with delicate beauty and provocative, direct eye contact. Their graceful gestures and ghost-like features carry mysterious expressions of melancholy and longing.
Audrey likes noodles, broth, audiobooks, video games, dancing, the paranormal, and white wine spritzers.
@2019 Audrey Kawasaki. All rights reserved.