A Revival Experiment

It's not that I've forgotten

what you did,

I just no longer think about you.

When the walls are collapsing around you, you can sit still and get squeezed or learn to start building upwards. After reaching the heights of all dreams realized, the collapse and reset could sting more than never having touched the summit. The reverberations of such a hurt, on a thorny road of countless betrayals, will redesign the quest for actualization.

A Revival Experiment collects 105 poems, 14 personal essays, 25 observational micro-thoughts, and 12 drawings, all originally crafted inside a dot-grid notebook with archival ink over a specific spring which symbolized the rejuvenation of a worn-out spirit. The works detail philosophical ponderings about existence, the feeling of intellectual and cultural exile, the role of faith as medicine, and maintaining rigorous principles in a world that rewards those who reshape their ethics for personal gain, all told from the perspective of aphantasia.

The digital ghosts of those who push you down may clog your interactions with the world. In this case, you have to reclaim all that you are, including replacing the propped-up structures that were built for others with what you can touch and hold between your palms.

My people love me so much in absence,

they push me away to keep the dream alive.