donate your body to science

i donated mine to art

james brown's initials

for all that is cryptic, this letter is to myself. it is signed by obscurity that perhaps only i will understand and it is released into oblivion with open arms and heavy heart. for every moment of my life that i have come to grip tightly there are that many moments that have stacked themselves beneath it creating a deeper sense of complicated simplicity and burying in the pages of my storybook. i sit here somehow close by yet very far away from home sleeping against a backpack of uncertainty and my heart is heavy. every experience in my life has stacked itself on top of another and right now i'm so tired that the backs of my eyelids feel like they are burning. so i write to myself from the perspective of being the only person who understands me and i do not find sadness in this but rather celebration that at least there is one person. no longer do the comments of strangers or the judgmental frowns from my parents find a place in my concern. i know what i'm doing. i don't need approval. no longer am i bogged down by the mistakes i've made or the guilt of not living up to other people's standards. i know damn well what i'm doing. and i'm good at it.

tonight i'll draw pictures and think of you and you probably don't even know who you are but it will turn out to be beautiful. i'll write you a letter in my head and have conversations with you that i should have said in person. i'll fall asleep early and when things go lucid i wont forget that i have a job to do. and as it has been said, "should my voice fade in your ears, and my love vanish in your memory, then I will come again, and with a richer heart and lips more yielding to the spirit will I speak."

{*"i'm here, because i can't stand what's happening.. now brother will you help me?"*}

And a Man sat alone,
drenched deep in sadness.
And all the animals drew near to him and said,
We do not like to see you so sad.
Ask us for whatever you wish and you shall have it.
The Man said, I want to have good sight.
The vulture replied, You shall have mine.
The Man said, I want to be strong.
The jaguar said, You shall be strong like me.
Then the Man said, I long to know the secrets of the earth.
The serpent replied, I will show them to you.
And so it went with all the animals.
And when the Man had all the gifts
that they could give, he left.
Then the owl said to the other animals,
Now the Man knows much, he'll be able to do many things.
Suddenly I am afraid.
The deer said, The Man has all that he needs.
Now his sadness will stop.
But the owl replied, No.
I saw a hole in the Man, deep like a hunger he will never fill.
It is what makes him sad and what makes him want.
He will go on taking and taking,
until one day the World will say,
"I am no more and I have nothing left to give."

in all walks of life..

be bold!

find Hector Santos