guassi, 56*76cm, 2023

Buddha’s tooth

Buddha’s tooth, burnt mark of a symmetrical flower, a relic to worship kept in a temple of gold, temple of the sacred tooth in Sri Lanka. Who holds the tooth, holds the governance of the country, the divine right to rule. Buddha who was cremated left only one tooth. So what is the other one? A tooth? It is a rainmaker. Ultima essence diving with turtles, ocean teacher, a born hungry ghost, never-ending Saffron revolution.

Bible speaks Job. Where is God? Like breathless talking people pretending. There is a crack that goes from here where I’m sitting on a bench to the railway. Waiting for the train, bumpy old asphalt hot. There is a crack on my phone, I dropped it on the pavement. I always look for human face on broken surface.

Sentences on women’s magazine today: I was cruel to myself. I will never be the same again. He asked if I had gone any further. How far do you want me to go? Emotionally experiencing is awkward and risky, what do you think I should find, something very specific? Is it something particular, new, unexpected, scary, understood by people only as weird and new?

I tried to measure every word and realized it is not enough, because then I am not me but trying to please someone else. Contextualized furor, living aorta, flowing, bumping, curling, consciously suffocating in fullness but dehiscent to rupture and break open. It is something violent to live.

Trampoline on a yard covered with snow, a grey house and on its wall said enchantment. Reflections of passengers on train window, their phones and laptops glow. At Colombo lake fishing by moonlight. You really got me I thought, funny beige (Bunny Page) Jeep standing at the bank. Poor you, Singhalese girl, what did you, who did you meet? I have an idea of normal, but it is not me. It is outside of me. I am not sure I understand me sometimes, but am I irrational? There are things that are normal for me to do daily like brushing my teeth twice a day, I go to bed and sleep at night, dream, but then when I go on I step out of the mainstream. I probably don’t want to continue thinking what is mainstream, it is pointed out, laid there like something I should walk on, but I assume it is the main thing.

Held my breath, kept my calm, waited, standing in the boat of mine, small, it could maintain my weight. I felt heavy, heavier than ever. Could not move my arms to row, holding an oar to hold my spine, I do not worry. I trust my boat, I trust its roof, I trust its surface, I trust its floor, I trust the oar, I trust my hand. I cleaned downtown Silver Sky, I cleaned dusty closets with so much junk that I wonder the person who has collected all that. Clean ink and motor oil stains that have been there for ten years like I was cleaning myself I feel.