Paroxysmal Fantasies

Austin Lam, 2T2 MAM

Artist Statement

This poem, “Paroxysmal Fantasies,” is a reflection on the chaos and uncertainty brought out and emblemized by the pandemic and its repercussions. The violent fantasies that play out in this poem are spoken by a hypothetical figure embodying COVID-19. This anthropomorphized character brings about its own vision of amorphous, paralyzing vitality. The question arises: what can this distorted version of vitality mean for us? Relatedly, how can it be a source of truthful disclosure, opening a deeper wellspring of life?

We have been and continue to go through a way of experience (Erfahrungsweg, Ernst Tugendhat). A full look at the worst has afforded the vision to see a path to the better. Although ‘the better’ remains in an opaque form, ‘the worst’ has and continues to be exposed: how quickly Faustian bargains are made; how heroes are created and destroyed by the same breath; and how lives become statistics.

Strip back the cranium

Tear it off

Cannibalistic orgy

Indulgence in multitudes of sin

Purple numbness

Stabbing pain

Blood-stained clouds

Remedios Varo paints

Penetrates this cellular burlap sack

Pointed knife

Slices to the bone 

Through butter

Flesh parts like the Red Sea

Dig in

Scoop out worm-like strands

Pink, meaty Jell-O

Bonbons, flesh candy 

Rabbit escapes the hat

TA-DA

The magician has done the trick

Tell me why 

You think you should live

Whence your value arises

Growing with the limbs of rigor mortis 

It don’t matter

It never did

Now whisper to me

As I blow into your ear

Life anew.