the house is alive.
my feet are swollen. my calves are scraped. my knees are skinned. my thighs are blue with bruises. my dirty shredded nylons tell today's story. i recount the events with every new scuff on my shoes.
my film didn't wind all day, so every picture i took exposed on the same negative, which i undoubtably ruined when i took off the back plate of the holga to investigate the mysteriously still-advancing film roll, likely bleaching out the ridiculously overlapped image in the light of the poorly shaded cemetery. all my tumbling to the asphalt on potholes & kneeling in sharp thorned raspberry vines to achieve those lovely angles were ultimately fruitless. i had to laugh. 'cuz i wasn't gunna cry.
i feel the same laughable defeat for my exploration of the garden
house, which failed photographically but soared beyond expectation in
personal effort. i can't remember the last time i tried so hard,
really FOUGHT to do something in-the-moment, rather that
some-other-time. even if this particular moment was pretty
antagonizing. a few young male tools happened to be working
construction in the same court. overzealously pretending to hear our
awkward answers to his vague questions, a namesless jerk offered
desperately & without end to boost me over the chain-link fence
which restricted all access to the low, unboarded window leading to
the fantastically alluring secret insides of the mysteriously charred,
beautifully overgrown, onceuponatime fully inhabitable remnants of a
dwelling which i stood before. all physical, mental, emotional &
geographical factors were decidedly against my going for it. i would
have to scale a six foot fence in heels & a small scrap of fabric
excuse-for-a-dress without flashing my ass to the anxiously watching
audience, pushily offering & re-offering to lift me over his head
with his untrustable hands & shamelessly exploring eyes, something
i silently refused. & even if i could somehow drag my own body
weight vertically across the fences' solid upward angle with my flimsy
untrained arms, even if i managed to balance my weak frail body at the
wobbly fence peak without exposing myself, there was nothing to jump
down to but rocky uneven marshland, unseeable under charred chunks of
wood, tangled vines, & various other boobytraps for me to sprane
an ankle on.
but clearer than the obvious obsticles & their possible
consiquences was the opportunity to explore not only the house i've
obsessed over but my own willpower & determination, unexercised to
a point of near absence in my daily lived life. those two unigornable
things alone are the reasons i decided to go for it, dangerous
obsticles aside.
fully concious of the peril of my decision, i kicked off my shoes
& flung my exhausted shell at the sturdy chainlink wall. i laced
my fingers & toes painfully around hard metal honeycombs. it took
every ounce of energy left in my drained body & soul to lift
myself to the next agonizing level, my arms as durable as wet
cardboard, stinging & shaking as i clawed up, over & down to
the forbidden other side. savagely graceful, somehow i even avoided
flashing the eager scumbag anything he wanted to see up my skirt.
glowing with pride i declined his offer to borrow his shoes for my
escavation, dizzy with anticipation i braced my hands against the
brittle blackened wood & snagging stray nails of the window frame
& lifted myself into the mystery house which had taunted so many
of my sleepless nights.
as i lowered my feet to the tattered plywood floor, a cloud of grey
moths rose to the degraded wooden beams of the crumbling ceiling.
before me was a doorway darkened with the stain of destructive flames,
inside was a wonderland of wreckage. kicking glass jars & tin cans
with each careful footstep, i explored the landscape of the small
rooms. slivers of sun cast panels of light over the eerie scene,
falling in through holes in the roof past exposed ceiling beams,
abstructing the otherwise pure blackness. a rusty water heater, a
bathtub full of wood scraps, & an overturned couch were the only
remnants of human existance here, & as it was these things
appeared to belong to the weeds which had eaten the house. the
emptiness told little of the houses' past inhabitants, but in the
thick darkness i saw clearly sinister intentions. this was a place
where no one would live, & any intruder would be eliminated, a
desire the house devoutely destroyed itself to fufill. & it had
noticed me there, poking around without permission. & it sought to
remedy that. the flowering vines that grew in from holes in the
flaking drywall reached out like thin green arms, clinging to my
tangled hair. holes in the floorboards threatened to swallow me whole,
to forever imprison me in it's unescapable depths. the rooms grew
taller & smaller. sweat misted my forehead, i smeared my face with
the dirty sleeve of my yellow cardigan. my heartbeat grew faster in my
chest & louder in the quiet of the hollowed rooms, i began to
panic like a cornered animal.
it was time to leave. with this new knowledge ringing in my ears like the echoey silency that carried through the rooms, i fled the house the same way i entered it. my sweaty skin smuged with charcoal, my aching limbs & gnarled blonde braids, the aftermath of this disturbing little missadventure well-shown on my person, all well-worth the satisfaction i feel for having seen with my eyes something nature tried desperately to make invisible.
Comments and faves
oregon lover added this photo to his favorites. (39 months ago)
oregon lover (39 months ago | reply)
This is a really nice set...I like you dedication to get the pic! Nice work!!!
Mariana.Quiroga and maigan.dunlap added this photo to their favorites.