I am 16 and my teacher is late for class. I am sitting at my desk drawing in my notebook when someone notices my incessant scribbling. An onslaught of questions-
“Is it a swastika?”
“No”
“Is it a cross?”
“Yes”
“It looks like the British flag”
“Kind of…”
Slowly my classmates begin to get up. Someone initiates a game of hangman on the white board.
“But what’s wrapped around it? Is that a snake?”
“Yes”
“What does it say around it?”
I get up from my seat and walk to the white board. To the right of the hanged man I write-
“Jesus died for his own sins, not mine”
I am 18 and we are parked outside a restaurant. You ask me to pick a cd. I grab the zippered folder and flip through pages of things I’ve never heard of, things I’ve read about, things I probably told you I loved. I am nearing the end of my options when I zero in on an almost solidly black disc. Centered at the bottom of the cd an iridescent circle peaks beneath the laminate, inside it is a + with a ∞ embossed on top. Circles distilled over and over. Without hesitation I slide it out of its flap and push it into the CD player. Applause reverberates from the speakers and a bright excited voice exclaims “Ladies and gentlemen! It’s Christ!” Following the announcement, three chords in quick succession repeating repeating, hoping to match the brightness of the son of God. Underneath it, commentary — nearly indiscernible to the unfamiliar. I close my eyes waiting for something I can anticipate-a man screams “Fuck you!” The snare cracks, jubilant, syncopated and bouncing at roughly 120BPM. I open my eyes and stare forward no longer concerned with all the ways we are different. We are siting in a parking lot. There are two palm trees on either side of a drive thru.
“Every woman is a cross and I hang before you”
I am 29 and you gave me a necklace. The faux leather cord doesn’t suite me, and instead I am affixing its charm onto a silver choker. Once I’m wearing it, the charm is cold and rests perfectly inside the pit of my throat. My fingers trace the enamel following the curve of the circle half way down then I stop and move my finger across the center, and back down on the other side. An ouroboros that protests the description because the heads do not meet-they’re bisected by the stations of the cross and instead of eating itself they inject venom inside an amalgam of authority. Our affection is trafficked in symbols, a secret love shared through the exchange of references and coded gifts-a peony scented candle, a welcome mat that greets guests as heroes. The tight silver around my neck makes me think of a collar and I get flushed on the train thinking-
“Do you love me? Say you do. We can leave the world and make it just for two”
I am 30 and standing in the center of a room. It’s stark from white carpet to white ceiling. Bright light streams through white shades drawn down to cover windows, filtering out the impurity on the other side. It’s almost institutional in its serenity. Furniture lines the walls- to the left a mirror in a white frame, a set of white milk crates next to a white bed whose length runs along the back wall. At its foot, a white dresser. A clothing rack frames the right wall. A white desk is tucked in the corner, its chair turned away from the rest of the room. The last remaining space to my right is covered by a white bookshelf. The only color in the room isn’t color, its black from ball point pen on fabric and paper. It covers the posters that line the wall to my left. Appetite for destruction. Black ink fills in the negative space of skulls. It renders the folds of a leather jacket that adorns the frame of a man standing behind text that reads “highway to hell”. The poster above the end table next to the bed features a reaper who pulls the strings of a demon puppet, pitchfork in hand and dressed in flames. The number of the beast. Black ink peaks out from pieces of paper on the desk that forms incendiary text. Fags hate god. It can be seen on record sleeves in the bookcase to my right. Our troubled youth. It’s folded around white cassette tapes, it traces their spines. Suicidal tendencies.
The center of the room is mostly empty. From where I am standing discarded clothing on the floor creates an arch across the room-a white pair of Vans, shoes as talismans. Instead of animal skins used to protect, its white canvas and an incantation wrapped around the toe, powered by 30 years of chanting “Do they owe us a living?” An immeasurable chorus of voices across time and space scream back, “of course they fucking do!” A belt with white pyramid studs pressed into soft white leather. White jeans in the center are covered in small shapes, circles and squares containing a language trafficked in symbols. Subhumans. A white denim jacket draped over the corner of the bed, its arms hanging down on either side, blending almost perfectly into the sheets. Neurosis. The arch ends with a white tee shirt crumpled at the base of a white clothing rack. This was likely the start of several attempts at piecing oneself together. Clothing as an attempt to build something out of nothing many times over. Armor. Five white tee shirts hang on five white hangers, each with its own sigil, reified in black ink. Sevitors of desire or banishment or protection, depending on the force of will that was used in their creation. Skinny puppy. Death. On the tee shirt folded over the bar I could make out the curve of a circle. I feel immediately the scratch of pen against paper following the same shape. The phantom feeling of my hand creating it over and over returns. The same circle with the same 2 headed snake curled around and gnawing at the top left and bottom right corners of a cross, the curve of its body cutting through the fascism of the church, the state, the family. I begin to count the small stacked lines that create the bend and curve of letters, usually rendered quickly and often illegally by a stencil and spray paint and realize that I am crying. My body is hot, all the white in the room feels focused on me, a spotlight. It might seem manic to spend hours and hours recreating the cover of an album in pen, copying lyrics anywhere there’s enough surface space, engraving words into your leg with only a thin piece of denim as a barrier between the pen and your skin. I don’t read these as the actions of a fanatic, standing inside this room, inside someone else’s practice. The organization of these symbols feels familiar, its purpose intimate because I have been here before. I recognize this as the bedroom I used to lay in as a teenager, a shrine who’s walls were adorned by symbols of devotion to the deities that made up my polytheism.
“The nature of your oppression is the aesthetic of our anger”
I am 30 and its my birthday. We are sitting in front of my apartment. I am instructed by my best friend to open a small box bound with twine. After tearing away the paper and opening the box I see its filled with white cotton. It’s customary to gift cotton for a second year anniversary and this marks my second birthday in New York. I unfold a tee shirt and see at its center a circle with dark lines that culminate in layered images of power, at its center a Christian cross, around the edges a serpent coiled and attacking. I have heard it described as a crest, that it mimics those on flags that were flown in support of families as they sought power via the divine right of kings. An interesting interpretation of a symbol that stands in protest of the ways that the family exerts influence through a morality that’s haunted by the specter of God. The tee was one of the ones that hung on a white rolling rack inside a room that made me cry months prior. I’m crying again, feeling a flood of memories-my jacket in high school covered in the insignia of of my order. The tattoo on my left bicep. I have lived where connections are quick and solidified based on what’s transcribed on leather or cotton or flesh. I am fluent in this language of symbols, when laid out in a specific way they create a roadmap that functions as a way to navigate even the most unfamiliar territories, including people. For those who speak this language camaraderie or antagonism is immediately identifiable based on what adorns someone’s skin or clothes. Certain sets of lines create shapes that signal hate and exceptionalism. Others signify a commitment to open boarders. Connections are formed quick as the result of this secret language and she has demonstrated her fluency. Holding this gift makes me believe that language is a form of spell casting, her presence in my life is the result. I have spent years saying the same words over and over hoping that with enough intention I could populate my life with mutual aid and reciprocity.
“They say ‘we had to do it to keep our lives clean!’ Who the fuck are they talking to? I tell you one thing, it ain’t me and you”
I’m 31 now, its after midnight. I have found a place on my wall for this tee shirt. I look around and realize how much white furniture makes up my room. White bed, white dresser, white desk. I feel several intentions layer themselves on top of one another, the final step in the alchemy of my life. All the desperate fantasies of a teenage girl trying to escape an abusive home through music books, all the daydreams of a 20 something love drunk anarchist who wasn’t afraid to speak with sincerity , the vision of another way of life and the commitment to creating it have slid into place. Energy has aligned with desire, and I have bridged the gap between those dreams and reality. I step back and touch my throat, remembering how long it takes to render the Crass logo in pen.
“Well I can make my paradise. Without your walls I am alive”
