The Truth Is A Fury | 2024

I excel at isolation.

Solitude is simple, I wear it all the time, like the jacket I bought at 14 that’s perfectly broken in now. Or a favorite watch that’s been passed down to you. Well; a watch that you think is a favorite. Until one day, decades into hearing it tick, it stops working and you don’t even notice.

When you go to switch the batteries and look at it for the first time in a really long time, you realize that it’s not your favorite. It’s actually never been your favorite. When you sit and you think and you look at it, you see that it’s kind of ugly. You only call it your favorite because it’s familiar and easy but then you look at it, really look at it, and spiral when you start to see how many other things are in your life because they are familiar.

And easy.

Like saying, “It’s okay, I don’t mind isolation,” when that’s not it—it’s not okay and it’s not your favorite. It’s just a gift wrapped lie that was handed to you when you were too small to say no that still fits so neatly, so easily across your wrist.

All my life, I excelled at isolation. Calling solitude simple now is a lie. An easy lie. A calm and familiar one.

But the truth is a fury that flutters through me. A flummox in my core that snakes up my spine and paints itself across my face—and my face betrays me, so I burst into fruit and stone and flame all at once. Lucky I’m too dark for you to see that I am burning but my palms betray me too and pool with sweat. And there is nothing simple I can do to hide it.

I thought I could build a life with these hands.

But all I am doing is wearing a watch that is not my favorite and wondering when I got so bad at being alone.

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Click here to watch the artist read this journal entry.