Today, I visited all major emergency rooms in this city to recite my wish to them. In the morning I already felt it would be a bad day. But I had planned to perform, and I wanted things to go the way that I had planned. I was in pain due to what was diagnosed in 2024 as interstitial cystitis or bladder pain syndrome. I was in a three-month flare. That evening, after visiting each emergency room and reciting my wish, I started to seriously consider admitting myself. While waiting on the line with my GP to ask for guidance, I returned to the wish. An emergency wish consists of the words you need when you are in an emergency. I had been reciting mine in case I needed those words to ring true. My commitment to the work, however, brought on the kind of crisis reserved for those who are sick, but not dying. I had planned to perform, and I wanted things to go the way that I had planned. As I waited on the phone, I recited my wish again and imagined the assistance hearing it and asking, “Excuse me, could you repeat that?” (Documentation by Santiago Saizu)
I took three glasses and threw them hard at the floor. The first one (the small one) was too small, and its glass too thick — too dense in its construction. I had to throw it a second time, even left a nasty dent in my floor and the way it broke, wasn’t as nice as the other two. When the other two broke, they shattered into tiny, tiny pieces, and it made a wonderful sound. They spread themselves across my floor like stars, and I stood there thinking, wow, this is quite beautiful — wow, this is kind of cosmic. Wow. But also, I wasn’t satisfied at all. Not at all. The feeling I wanted to rid myself of (by breaking these glasses) was still there. And I didn’t have anything else to break. I was tired, too, so I had to just keep it in. Because what’s next — myself? No. I don’t want to hurt myself. When I tried hurting myself (as a child), I quickly realized it’s extremely unsatisfying. Hurting, like dying, is extremely unsatisfying. I wanted to break something. I wanted the satisfaction of seeing something break. But I was out of glasses, so I took my broom and shoved most of the shards into a corner. I unmade my bed, some shards still on my sheets. I did a rough sweep with my arm, once across (yeah, I was not afraid at all). The little pieces made tiny sounds as they bounced about. I thought: I’ll clean the rest tomorrow, but I quite like the look of these small glass shards (like stars. Wow!) and the small sounds they made when hitting against each other. So maybe keep them around and, once in a while, push them from one corner into another. I went to sleep, and the next day, as I was about to make my bed, noticed a glass shard in the place where I had most likely been lying all night. It was quite big. I examined myself. I hadn’t been cut. I thought: Wow... wow!
To the tree, with many birds, that kept me company, when the doctor, performed the exam, to see inside the organ, that has not stopped hurting, since that night, when that man, made it so, that I now never, seemed to have known, a painless day.
We sit in the booths. I order a tomato soup, and you get a beer. I slowly lift the spoon to my mouth and wait for you to look away; then I drop the soup onto my skirt. After you finish your beer, you stand up and walk to the bar to pay. I turn away and quickly put my coat on. A puppy in the booth next to ours is badly behaved and plays with its leash, almost biting me. I step on its tail, and it cries out. We then walk home. A little girl and her mother walk the same way—the entire way—and that entire way we listen to her pleas for a christmas bunny rabbit. The weather is cold enough for the soup that I had fed my skirt to stay well hidden under my big coat. I would not have pulled a stunt like that otherwise.
