I’m a wild, warm animal,
conceived in Camp Lejeune where Marines are
trained to kill and Always Faithful.
My parents drank and bathed in the solvent-contaminated groundwater as TCE, PCE, and vinyl chloride formed my tiny vessels like map lines.
Benzene is my mother.
I have never been without her.
A few miles away, through the tall pines and past the intercostal waterway, I swam in the ocean - my body clean and new, baptized in the churning waves.
conceived in Camp Lejeune where Marines are
trained to kill and Always Faithful.
My parents drank and bathed in the solvent-contaminated groundwater as TCE, PCE, and vinyl chloride formed my tiny vessels like map lines.
Benzene is my mother.
I have never been without her.
A few miles away, through the tall pines and past the intercostal waterway, I swam in the ocean - my body clean and new, baptized in the churning waves.
This altarpiece triptych has been in the works passively for over a year (I think I started it, like, -geez- October of 2018). It contains an amalgam of symbolism connecting to different aspects of my childhood - early memories of wonder and awe, internalized religious fables, family stories - and the process of integrating my past with the present. The woman in the left panel is my mother; my daughter is on the right. This piece has been gestating for a long, long time and I finally let myself hear what she needed to say in order to be born.