writing (after the chateau)

Creating after the chateau has been a path of starts and stops, little pieces of writing sprawling across pages. I follow the trails of scattered thoughts and sometimes find thickets that feel like that creativity, that love in community. The words, though written later, find their way into, next to, over the images I made at Orquevaux, where they echo together.

the statue poem

At my core I am chippy

not like chipped

like chiseled

like mad

like they told me the

rules of the game

and as they explained

already I felt my skin grating

not chipper

sharp

the slap two sticks make

a bite

impatient

I’ve sat a room down and waited

I was told the rules of the body game

clothed, unless

clothed, no less

My neck burned in shame

An inherited sunburn

when I was told that

my body was dirty

because of the nipples on my skin.

At my core I am magma

I will melt this place down

Not a chip and

then another

each piece and the whole

To be chippy: (adj) describing

the point in a hockey game when 

the play gets rancid when

the sins start stacking

In this sport to be filthy is to be brilliant with your hands

To be a wall is to be the best with your body

To be chippy is to be ready to wreck

At my core I have a wall but it’s chipped

Beautiful stone breaking

Stone bodies break the rules

Unexempt I am filthy but not brilliant

A greek athlete bathes with filthy hands

but if I did it’d be dirt I’d scrape off

never oil

The body of an athlete moving across

labyrinths to rinse to

wash to dry

to try

not to play this game again

Photographs taken February 2025

Poem written May 2025