Danny Keyes

the year is over thank god i smile at my soon-to-mold windows and laugh at my dusty pile of books we made it i have kissed my favourite babies and yelled with my favourite old men i drank the hot coffees and warm beers and saw lizards that swam like they’re flying i choked on campfire smoke and gargled salt water i tied my hands to the longest love and i cried with my closest friends this year i watched brave kids become weary and i watched weary adults become brave i studied at my dining room table and argued with my firmest ideals i was wrong i was right i am on the right path this year i became the smallest self i’ve ever been tiny enough to crawl through a drain spout i became so minuscule that i finally realized that life is the big thing and it’s so full of all the other beings that the only thing that i can be is a rest spot i became a kitchen cloth and a pint glass i became vulnerable as i tried to become valuable and i’m humbled to say that while i’m not doing well i breathe and i grow more honest and most of all, i’m humbled

We went to Seattle. We took a little boat, a catamaran, and then we wandered. Through the market, through the alleyways, through the library, and finally, through a row of bars. We ate, we saw, we left. I am sober, so while Josh drank, I observed, and loved the entire spectacle. If you have the opportunity to see drunk Joshua, take it up. He will dance and rant and befriend everyone who crosses his path, all while doing a lecture on graffiti. It’s ridiculous, in ways that’s I can appreciate. I wore converse and denim and expertly dodged the rain, which is no small win. Another city explored with Mr, very good, very good.

We hate routine from the moment we are born. We need it, but we fight it. Self care isn’t a blessing, it’s a chore, check my toothbrush. I must eat breakfast every morning, or else I must choose not to. To simply opt out of choice is impossible, but what is the difference? Toast with butter sustains me, but at a certain point I must ask why? If I wake up to eat bread, and inhale tobacco, only to then sleep in the same bed with the same person, waking to do the same job each day- why must I adhere to a routine? To elongate a life of nothingness seems bothersome. I don’t like food. I only eat because I know my mom would cry if I didn’t. I only shower because I am ego. I only read to escape the soul crushing burden of the mundane. I don’t enjoy a single thing most days. But I do it. I wake up, I drink water, I practice my guitar. I’ve become a robot with anxiety and a crushing morality complex. Practice makes perfect. 10,000 hours. Only the good die young. Brush your teeth, twice every day, even when you’re sad and your bones feel magnetic. Fold your clothes, make your bed, close the cupboards - all to avoid a tidal wave of depression when I look at an exterior that matches my interior. But there are so many socks, and so many messes, and I am already busy dragging my mind from place to place. How do people have children? I am happy, I am relatively unscathed to the traumas of youth, and yet I want to sit on the shower floor. The sound of my lover’s voice bounces around my hollow mind, reminding me that my existence is bigger than myself. I’ll be okay when I die, finally ceasing to drag self and body around, but they won’t be. My brother would crumble like dust, my parents would become shells. My partners would be alright eventually; they are on a trajectory. We all have big sadness, which is really just emptiness, but we make our beds, and we brush our teeth because at least when we’re sad we are living. United by the paradox of self actualization and ego - the hollowness of placing meaning where there is none.

I don’t believe in “a phase” I do not think that you are temporarily one person, And then magically become someone entirely new. If that’s how you were as a child, in your creativity and expression, I see it in you now. I think that every moment that you live, you exist permanently, to some capacity. You’re a tree, a fixed entity, carrying every single thing that has ever happened, And I find peace knowing that while I may never become, I have been. Even the harm that I have caused is redeemable If I put effort into fixing what I have broken. If I am intentional and consistent It can become a beautiful trinket to carry, Instead of a burden. Or worse, A repression. Repression is piling guilt onto a memory or impulse, It is heavy and often arbitrary. If you liked wearing tights as a six year old boy, There is no logical reason you wouldn’t like it still. Why not try? Are you really so attached to the makings of a man, to even consider exploring the multitudes within you? If you’ve found strength in your beauty before, Why must you suddenly cease? It simply isn’t done? Is that true? Are you brave? Are you honest? Do you know yourself well enough to ask, Do I like this? Sin is about harming others. It is never in expressing yourself. Be one with yourself, push the worldly ideals of rigid self policing to the outside, and see yourself as the *person* you’re meant to be. You deserve to see yourself as your god sees you- How can you do that if you never discover your personhood?

••••••••• I’ve never been self possessed- I’ve always held myself back, Reminded myself to check in with someone. I’ve never been able to exist freely, Genuinely able to ask myself what I want- Why is that? I’ve been attached to someone for my entire life, Because I do so love a someone. Has that love of someone Morphed into fear of self? Into fear of environment? I never slept alone- Not even as a child. I have enjoyed always existing alongside a person, And I like falling asleep to someone’s breathing . As a child, I was very scared to sleep alone. The little boy at the end of the bed, The mirrored wall beside me, and the streetlight outside my window Combined with the loudness of the silence- I would pray for hours “No demons if Jesus is there” My mother tried to convince me- Probably sick of being cockblocked by her eldest- But even the god of the heavens couldn’t make the fridge down the hall, Or the toilet that always ran, Any quieter. The smell of popcorn, Mom and dad laughing, It would calm me. Remind me that while my room was icy And oh so dark, The walls were thin. Dad could save me if I yelled. But dad was often gone, and the house was always quiet, And the silence in my room became so sticky. To sam’s room I would go. Hello Sam, She hated sleeping with me. But mother got a bunk bed, Things were quieter with a body in the room. I finally felt calm enough, And old enough And brave enough To pee in the middle of the night Until we moved to a new, Very old And oh so haunted House

-My special interest is reading. It’s a good thing. I often forget to eat all day, lost in countless hours of book. It’s great that you read, wow, it’s inspiring. A good thing, yes, the reading is. When it isn’t trying to kill me, A good thing the reading is. I was the kid the adults couldn’t find, Sleeping behind the bookshelves, On a stack of books they swore I shouldn’t read. Hard books, books on Helen Keller, Books on ancient poetry. Some Lonesome stories. Certainly some Heroic stories. Ones that haunt you. Ones that hurt you. That whisper to you that you might never be interesting enough, Or valuable enough, To ever make those pages. And when I woke up, And I looked around- Finally old enough for my own adventures, I realized. I wasn’t a rag tag boy, Or a business man, Or Robin Hood. And I didn’t know of any girls who were. I had Nancy drew in her pretty dresses, And Barbie in her doctors coat. But I wasn’t a hero- I wasn’t pure- I had no seduction with innocence. I wanted grit, I wanted break your knees if you step out of line. I wanted moral ambiguity. So I became a villain. I wasn’t a woman, and I wasn’t a man; I was vapour. A nonexistent entity, Causing tangible harm, To bleed out on the floor of a library. To die in my living room, By a cold mug of tea. I am a character, Because I asked people to write out my story. But I could just be a journalist, no? That’s what I wanted. Journalism’s dead because the journalists all died, But some of us were too young for their massacre. Is it real? I want to know But they’ve burned all the books-

Should we die for art? The freedom of complacency is enticing- is not our denial of routine offering enough? Must honesty always be purchased with blood? When will the filleting of self be enough? I must pry apart my bones, push aside my organs, just to see the hidden truths. The ones so soaked in iron I can hardly decipher their meanings. Is that not enough? I pour more liquor on the self inflicted wounds- one cannot risk infection. I paint and write and self destruct- “please love me”’s and “I’m evil”’s sit on tables, draped in sheets, like bodies in a morgue; excavated through the deconstruction of self. Decades of records, piling up, all must be inspected. Homophobia in one pile, racism- it’s own tower. Religion must be dissected, and all the deep knowings that slipped through censorship must be cataloged. The rest, of course, discarded. Is not that labour enough for art? Such a greedy goddess, demanding such purity. Life is both distraction and necessity, such a volatile cocktail.

Do you ever get the feeling that your entire life is on hold, and no matter how many vaccines you get, you’ll still be stuck underwater? Still unable to achieve autonomy- and one day you’ll wake up, and your mind will be clear, but everyone will be gone, and your long neglected skin care routine will be nothing in the face of the decades you spent alone, asleep, underwater. Or are we all just excited to party? (Ft. alcohol in brown bag)

If anyone has read “women in love” and wants to talk about it, call me.

Do you have dialogue inside your lil brain telling you nasty little secrets, trying to persuade you into the mud? If so, look out for my next show- mud boy.

We were taking photos of a lake and its beautiful mountains, and a lovely park ranger offered to take a photo of the two of us. He then proceeded to zoom in on only our faces, resulting in this photo. The background was stunning, but so are we.

Hardest year with the sweetest human. Thank you sweet angels for giving me the most patient, consistent little love bug in the lands. Learning to deserve such a creature will be my life’s work- love you Joshua!!!