Maxima Strange
Intruders
In every room, I open my eyes. Where are the shadows? What's in that corner? What's under the rug? I’m desperate. I’m stumped. It’s not just this house. It's everywhere I've ever lived. I look into the shadows, and I try to make my eyes stretch to see. I want the apertures to open wide so that the light can enter me and bounce around inside my head. Sometimes I see things I shouldn’t see. I whistle at them and wait for them to whistle back. I recognize the sounds. I hear the darkness speaking. The voices sound like me. I am in the corner. I am the lump under the rug. I cannot sleep. I do not know the things that are inside my sleep. The corners of my sleep are just as dark as the corners of this room. There's also a scratching noise inside of me. There are chunks. They move. I know they move. I close my eyes, and I see them move. I am stuck in the middle of this dream. You would think I’d have more power, but I don’t. I am powerless in my dream. These noises are not just noises. They are characters. They inhabit this space. They are thumpers and leapers and singers. In my dreams, I am like them. I am a tooth. I can barely chew, but I can chew enough that I can taste the things that I’m allowed to taste. But I can’t taste the intruders. I am not satisfied with my dreams. They hold the things that hold me prisoner, pinned to the wall of my head. They are the blackness in the corners of this room. And when the room becomes the dream I know the shadows have won the night. That's when I know I might never sleep again.
Ice Box
Cold
I cannot be what I want to be because I am still what I was before. But I don't want to be her anymore. I refuse it. I whisper it when I open the refrigerator and pull the milk jug from the door. I study the light. I know why it goes on. I know why it goes off. I have figured out the trick. I can coax the trick, and I can make the trick my own. Because I am a trickster. I am the not me. I am the one who becomes the other one. I am not the one who was once the one. I do not know how to turn this milk into anything but milk. I fill the glass to the rim and then I take the straw from the drawer. The straws that we have left over from the ones they give us at the fast food store. My mother does not use the straws. We saved the straws because I like the straws. And I drink the milk with a straw. I like to pour the chocolate into the milk after I drink some of the milk without the chocolate. That's when the chocolate tastes the best because my mouth is coated in the milk. And then the chocolate fills the bottom of the glass. I spear the milk with the straw. I am a fisherman. I throw my harpoon down into the bottom of the glass. The chocolate fills the straw and fills my mouth and fills my body. And I am like a column of chocolate. I am a solid tube of chocolate. My fingers and toes are chocolate. My eyelashes turn chocolate. I am not hollow like a bunny. I am solid like a giant Hershey's kiss. Not the little ones my grandmother keeps on the living room table. I am a living Hershey’s kiss. I am wrapped in tin foil and I wear my mask. Because my mask lets them know that I am not the one I was, but I am the one I have chosen to be. And they will honor it. They will show respect. They will fill their drawer with straws they choose not to use. And I will drink my chocolate milk. My creation. It is mine. And I can put as much chocolate in it as I want. And the milk turns brown. And browner and more brown. I drink it so quickly and so cold. I feel it in my lungs. It seems as if it’s in my lungs. But it's not. It's in my chest. It's in my body. It fills my throat. It falls into my stomach. And it corrupts me from within. I am two coins. I am a four-colored pen. I am a keychain from Colorado. I am the rubber thumb grandma used to keep her from poking herself with needles (when grandma was alive). I feel the box by the side of my bed. I wear the mask. Everything I see is everything that is me. Even my parents belong to me. My dog. My cats. The fluffy cover on my grandmother's toilet seat. I am super. I am chocolate. I am so small and young and always icebox cold.
Dumb People
Wear Shoes
Dumb. It's dumb. It's dumb to tell me that I have to wear shoes. Who wears shoes? Dumb people wear shoes. They are tight. They make me sweat. My toes hurt. I am growing. They don't fit. Dumb people tell me to wear shoes. I try my best to travel without them. Most times no one notices. Most times the cold linoleum of the Target floor feels so good against the bottoms of my dirty feet. My feet are calloused. They are like the hooves of a horse. And I know I can gallop. I am a filly. In ancient times there were those who would have worshiped me. They worshiped horses. They said we were gods. It's not true. We are not gods. I am just a pretty girl. I don't need to be worshiped. And yet so many do. Their eyes slip from their sockets and slide down to see me. That’s why I don't wear shoes. Because when they look me up and down they wind up on my feet and they forget what it was they were looking for. They see a savage. Most of the time. But when they don’t, I turn them to stone. That is not what the horse gods could do, but I have borrowed that from the ancient Greeks. It was the Gorgon who could do this. What a feat. There are so many times in a day when I would want to turn every gawking face and tilted head into nothing but stone. Not a pretty stone. Not marble. Not the kind of stone they might use to carve the statue of a yearling or a colt. No. The kind of stone that we use today at the bottom of a pole that says “no parking.” The kind of stone we might use today to fill the bag where we place the bodies that we want to bury at the bottom of the ocean. You see, you would take them out in a little boat and push them over the edge until the bags filled with water and then dropped into the sea. And then you stand up on the water and you gallop until the sun reminds you that you are mortal. That you are human. That running on water is the privilege of Pegasus. You are not the offspring of Medusa. And you cannot turn anyone to stone. It is your job to turn to stone when the men look at you. Sit still. Sit pretty. You’re marble. If you move you might crack.
26 Scars
You can't fake scars. Well I guess you can, but I won’t. I've got scars. I didn't get them the old fashioned way. People gave them to me indirectly and inadvertently and without much consideration for the tenderness of my skin. It seems like from the very beginning they've been giving me scars. I've got them on the inside and the outside. I've got them stretched across my back. I've got them on my palms and on my belly. I've got them on the bottoms of my feet. I've got more scars than teeth. Don't worry about me though. I'm used to them. They are as much a part of me as my voice or my fears. Some of them sit right behind my tears. And every time I look out into the world, I see the world in scars. And not only do I have scars. I have letters. I have a whole host of letters. I think I have the alphabet. Maybe in a different language I might not have the whole thing, but in the language that they speak to me in the rooms with coffee tables and comfortable chairs I have all the letters. Once upon a time, I used to twist the letters and spin them on my refrigerator door. I had all the letters there as well, and I could spell. I could write sentences. But then one day, they took the letters down. And they gave me 26 scars. Because each letter that was removed was a cut. It was a jagged cut. It was a zigzag cut. It was the shape of each letter, carved into my body. Carved across my tummy. And I could no longer spell with the letters on the door. But I could spell with the letters that were now a part of me. A part of my skin. I could spell with the scars that were now stuck to me with sutures and wires and the butterfly stitching that the lazy interns like to use to close me up forever.
His Next
Victim
I know that on the moors of Scotland they often claim that the wild beast roams free. This is a beast that doesn't care about your uncle or your fish or the fact that next month you hope to get your driver's license. This is a beast that ignores the fact that you ordered a couch that’s due to be delivered on Friday. It doesn’t care that this June you're booked to travel to the beach. This is a beast that cares about your heartbeat and your soft skin and the fact that you will scream as it thrashes you about, trying to snap your neck in two. He's interested in your past experiences with tragedy and trauma. He has his ways of creeping into your mind and reading you like a book of poetry. He gets you to melt into the stories that you never planned to tell, and he can make you want to be his next victim. I run through the night across the moors. I am guided by the light of the satellite. All I know is that I should run from this light into the dark because once I am in the dark, it is likely that the beast won't want to eat me. It won't want to bite my body in half. No. He will want to listen to me tell the tales of my childhood. Stories that I'm not supposed to tell. So as to incriminate and obliterate the family members who are meant to be safe. Only they weren't. Not for me. And so I chase the darkness across the wet grass, and I run into his enormous soft arms. Because a beast who can do what he can do cannot be horrid. He cannot be foul. He must have a lullaby voice and a quiet tongue and the time to take you back to the worst things you can remember. He must be like a pillow. He must be a gentle song. And most of all he must be present. He must wait patiently before he bites the soft underside of your spirit. He must only nibble you quite slowly and let you finish talking before you bleed out.
Swimming
Widdershins
I am tucked snugly into the sleepy fog that sits above us all and holds up the night that wants to force its way down onto our bodies. It would sit on us if it could. I burn a candle in my room. The faint smell of bergamot blends with the smell of the oils in my hair, and my fingers are tucked tightly under my face. My senses all die that once were so active but now slip quietly under the fog that protects me. I can see the night sitting on the dock of sleep with its paw slashing this way and that at the koi pond of my mind. My thoughts swim widdershins in gold and orange. I am the water of the pond, and the lilies are my thoughts. I am the thoughts of the lilies that float upon the pond, and the fish are the dreams that are stacking up in my head. It is a head so full of fish, and the night is a cat. I can feel its breath filling up my forehead and packing my mind with the fog of sleep. The night shifts its weight from one side to the other, eager to find food in my dreams. But my dreams are inedible. My dreams are mine. I am my dreams, and my dreams are my food. I eat my dreams. I eat them with a spoon. And the spoon is cold and piled with fish and the dreams swim carelessly through my mind. I am the candle. I am the wick. I am the flame that falls on itself and dooms the poor candle to its death. I am death. I am the dream of death. I am death swimming through the pond under the lilies that live but not for long because nothing ever lasts forever.
The Blue
Inside of You
What do you want from me out there, you with the eyes that look and stare at me as I sit here so tired and so true. What you want is to steal my blue. You want to seal your own victory by stealing away my blue. But you haven't even thought about what the consequence would be to you. You just sit there with your tongue in the air, and you dream about wearing my cold steel blue. But let me say this to you so clearly and so believably too. My blue can't leave my skin. My blue can't go away from me. My blue is my sin and if you were to steal my sin, then you too would be blue. But your blue would not be where your white skin used to be. Your blue would be inside of you. It would be where no one could see. It would inhabit you. And then I could be a cancer that would eat you through. Your blue would be your blue and not my blue. Your blue would be you. I pity you. I'm sorry you were born. I'm sorry you had to face the scorn of getting old. I don't know what I did to make you want to do this thing to me, but I can promise you that it's an impossibility. It can't be done. I am not the black sun. I am the sky so I see gray and blue. And you are the cancer that eats away at you, too. And I won't visit you when you are in the hospital with all the doctors who would tend to you. I won't visit you when you are at the graveside and all the mourners there who mourn for you. I can't visit you. I won't do it now. I will disavow that you ever took my blue. I won't be responsible for you. I will skip and dance and curtsy too. I will meet the queen and listen to the machine that beats and beats your heart for you. And my blue will become red. And I will stare at your sweaty head. I will see you there in the hospital bed. And I won't feel a thing for you. I won't even bother to say a prayer for you. I'll simply wipe away the blue and take it with me because without my blue I'm not true. And I'm always true to myself but not you.
Author: Derek Letsch
Artist: Maxima Strange
Artist Statement
“My art tends toward the Goth, colors associated with melancholy. Black and red combinations are very beautiful to me. Also the colors associated with fall: blacks, oranges, reds, browns. These are the colors that draw me to contemplation.”