"So Much to Say"

Full Release ~

“So Much to Say” 

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A mini digital zine reflecting my experience with social isolation and ostracization as I find my footing within Appalachia as a black, queer, disabled individual.

There is this cultural view of silent suffering here. An idea that speaking about vulnerability, nuance, and systemic oppression is a social taboo. To speak of it is almost worse than the issue itself. Where wanting to be openly and honestly communicative of your struggles and experiences is seen as awkward and aggressive. As if using your voice to talk about your differing perspective and traumatic systemic oppression is a direct attack upon them and everything they have ever loved.

And admittedly, I have folded to this social pressure for my whole life. That my voice must be silenced due to the discomfort of those unaffected by the same systems of oppression. But recently, creating has been a therapeutic coping means of survival for me. A voice lost to societal pressure to pretend everything is fine is finally finding its home through my art. Where I may scream, whisper, whimper, sing and dream at my leisure.

So, 5 poems paired with 5 digital painting visual companion art pieces.

• PDF Copies Available: https://ko-fi.com/pixelrenaissance ˗ˏˋ★ ˎˊ˗

• Support me and find more of my art: https://linktr.ee/pixel.renaissance

• Read more of my work on Substack: https://substack.com/@pixelrenaissance 

•  Drinking + Nobody 

• Ableism at the Disco + Agoraphobia Calling 

• Nepo Baby Blues + Glow 

• Ode to Et tu Brute + Saint

• Persephone Complex + Maiden becomes Knight

PixelRenaissance ~ Published 2024

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Drinking

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“Nobody”

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I don't like alcohol
Because it makes people be mean and cruel
And lose control
And not remember
And that scares me
But I remember-
One of us has to.

Even the “positive” moments of relational repair
Get lost
in the dim, booze flooded labyrinth
Of your mind
The stale scent of repression still lingering,
Long after the liquor has been evaporated

I can't do it for you. I can't process this trauma for you. I can't make you care about my pain.

I have seen the most brilliant minds
Forcefully shoving and contorting themselves into the bottom of a bottle

No matter the cost
Just to not remember
But I remember.

So, I am not one for sobriety
But I have stopped drinking.

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Ableism at the Disco

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“Agoraphobia Calling”

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Every time I am asked to pick a superpower

There is always one immediate clear answer;

Invisibility

(followed closely behind by shapeshifting)

This has always been my answer but now,

being visibly physically disabled,

I just want to disappear


What I miss the most is concerts

Bodies pressed into each other without a care

Easy to escape

And just be in the moment

The mosh pit felt like jumping into the abyss

Humans turn into a hivemind of particles

Crashing against one another

Like just another wave in the ocean


But now, because I have to be sitting

In a portable chair-

I no longer have access to that freedom.

Not because of having to use the chair or cane itself

But the perception of myself from others when I do


Freedom of anonymity

To blend in,

Chameleon into the crowd

One year,

on New Year's in a bar,

it had been one of the rare times I felt that feeling again.

There were disco lights and music

And I was happily dancing with a partner

When I saw a phone camera light flash out of the corner of my eye

It didn't go away either

I looked over to see some 20 something white girl recording me dancing with my partner, a smirk on their face

In the dark disco it felt like a spotlight from above

A haloed target marker to alert the blood sniffing dogs

I remember not being able to look in that direction for long, as the bright lights made my eyes water

Do you know what it's like?

To once be able to get lost in the labyrinth of a concert crowd,

To having to be turned into a sideshow attraction

Made to perform without joy to a lifeless audience?

Do you know what it's like when your body is no longer yours?

Stripped of individuality, ability and strength

You do not own your body yet you cannot give it away

You can no longer give yourself over to the dance floor like all the pop hits chant

You are now a symbol

A distraction

A token

A problem

Their coos and sighs of pity as you play the part of inspiration porn

Or their pointed stares and smirks as you play the part of social martyr

Or perhaps the all encompassing apathetic drive to look away entirely


It burns like acid in the back of my throat

Agoraphobia calling

It rings and rings and rings

Receiver ringing off the hook

Busy Signal singing it's intoxicating melody

My eyes hollow and wide,

feeling as if I am a feral deer in headlights,

I look to my friends and allies for assistance

defense, empathy, care at all

Only to realize the call is coming from inside the house

the cavalry is not coming

And without option

I must pick up and take the call myself

No one else will

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Nepo Baby Blues

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“Glow”

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I don't want to see your art anymore

Like it's cool

Sick

Rad

Or whatever

But where is your heart?

All of your friends talk shit about you-

And you treat them like shit-

And you talk shit about all of your friends-

And they treat you like shit-


I used to be one of the people who saw you from afar

and thought you were different

A charming, witty, talented person

I reach out a soft hand of praise,

in awe of you,

wanting to be a friend,

an ally

To your melodramatic macabre eyes


Not knowing the truth

until I am forced into proximity

That you are as venomous as a viper

As poisonous as the prick of the scorpion’s tail

just waiting for your next prey to strike

Suffering?

Oh!

How very inspiring!

You see the blood and get excited

Not from catharsis

But

because just like those privileged bourgeoisie who came before you -

you know, your relatives

You are a pathetic vampire

Like your lineage demands, you seek out the weak

and suck every little drop of life that you can get your lipstick stained fangs on-

scurrying off to hide

as soon as the venom wears off





I wish everyone else could see the truth,

the one I see now

That your pseudo progressive, hipster, faux leftist art is

derivative

overrated-

built on the bodies and hard work of everyone you used to get here

And honestly?

I don't want to see your art anymore

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Ode to Et tu, Brute;

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“Saint”

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I speak to thee, even as the ghost thou hast created
Or shall I name thee Cassius?

No, no - Brutus; it quite befits thee

with thine elephantine encumbrance thy claim drudge
And ones hypermnesic sentiment for thee, frater meus

Now, a proclamation of matters more worthy than I, in thoust humble turn of mind:

Inebriety

Precarious debauchery

Navel-gazing

Squanderous saturnalia

Entertaining dearth peace

Conventional fogyism

Thoust indecorous case goods

Rivaling vexation and tribulation

Supercilious complacency

Idiomatic umbrageous rancor

One could enumerate indelibly.

What has jaundiced thoust heart?
Whither has thoust vitriol and ire begin?

Was thine self coalesced brummagem heartsease not satisfactory as thoust colluded?

For the love of the people-

That being why thou hast betrayed thine kinsmen, right?
Yoke stronger than blood, a bond etched in astrological luminaries

Yes, yes. For the love of the people. Just not I.

I shall haunt thee no more.
For one so lurid and tawdry does not deserve thine temporal space.

No matter what delusions thoust truss upon me.
There is no drouth in thine absence.

For thine frater meus gainsaid ghost, not so pinchbeck, has metamorphosed.

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Persephone Complex

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“Maiden becomes Knight”

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Gardening

to let it go

put your troubles in the dirt
the seed pods know how to keep a secret

No matter the season

I will eat your pomegranate seeds by the fist full
and there's

nothing

you or

Hades can do about it

Go ahead
Try to send out a cold chill
Attempting to drag me down
To the Underworld
It will be in vain

I escaped my mother

I can escape this

I must

For the spring will always come again
The sleeping pixies will sprout
The frost mounds will melt
The garden will begin to root

Let nature run its course

Because every garden needs fertilized
Breaking down organic nutrients and acidic minerals
Mixed into Mulch, Soil, Compost

For we all become dirt one day

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• Thank you so much for reading “So Much to Say”! Check out more of my work and support me below!

• PDF Copies Available: https://ko-fi.com/pixelrenaissance˗ˏˋ★ˎˊ˗

• Support me and find more of my art: https://linktr.ee/pixel.renaissance

• Read more of my work on Substack: https://substack.com/@pixelrenaissance 

•  Drinking + Nobody 

• Ableism at the Disco + Agoraphobia Calling

• Nepo Baby Blues + Glow

• Ode to Et tu Brute + Saint

• Persephone Complex + Maiden becomes Knight

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

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