Getting Framed

Self Portrait as a Diagnosis    —    Mark Brasuell   — Charcoal and Handmade Pastel on Paper

 

Walking through galleries has always intimidated me: I feel so small next to someone’s soul laid bare on canvas. Without a screen between the art and I, the experience is intense. It’s beautiful, really. Like standing next to the ocean.

Mark Brasuell’s collection of pastel pieces included several “self portraits”. This felt incredibly bold to me. Walking around the Lincoln Gallery, I was pulled to a large, bubblegum-pink piece at the front. I hesitate to distill an entire piece to the word “pretty” but it was. It was pretty. I couldn’t write confessionally about “pretty” because that is so far from how I would describe myself. To the right of the bubblegum, was a smaller, chaotic, mostly green piece. I looked at the title: Self Portrait as a Diagnosis.

For three years doctors, therapists, my family and friends–they’ve all seen me as a disorder. Weak. Anorexic. People who don’t know my diagnosis see a small “girl” who is both accommodating and unintimidating. There is no risk to be taken with me. If they were to paint a portrait of me, it would read like the first poem. I wrote it angrily, then with defiance wrote the second. I wasn’t sure if anger and defiance were what I wanted to use to paint myself. But I think Ms. Plath, the confessional poet dearest to me, would have done the same. 

 

 

Self Portrait as 75 lbs

 

To touch me is to read in Braille 

the story of my bones.

Osteopeniactic. Hollow. 

Needing but refusing filling.

 

Double jointed–detachment issues 

And a brain fed only Girl Juice*

*A fancy name for water and the occasional piece 

of sugar-free gum. 

 

Diagnosis: Girl.

 

The inside of bacteria.

Green: Inexperienced. Infected

Doing only wrong to the home. 

My directive is  wreckage 

 

Between sheets scolliated spine cracks

Teeth weaker with every lunch date revisited 

In my Holy Porcelain Palace of

Weak Constitutions. I don’t like it

 

When my knees knock.

But the doorbell wakes the dogs.

 

 

 

Self Portrait as a Eulogy

 

 

She folds tablecloths on dinner dates

Makes galaxies

Of water glass rings. She speaks

In broken Spanish pirouettes

Line dances because it feels good

To hold a stranger. She likes bland

Triangular triscuits.

The color pink, in theory. 

Second place jeopardy contestants. 

Eye contact. pacing.

Pregnant silences.

Sad music written by people who are no longer sad.

Her mom, the Scorpio. 

Contra dancing.

Lending books to nurses. artificial sweeteners.

Memoirs with sad beginnings.

Certain songs played many times. others only sometimes.

Trey Anastasio.

Women. Spacious eyelids.

Male, Canadian figure skater, Roman Sadovsky

A clean face.

“Girls with weird eyes.”

Kurt Cobain’s interview answers.

Watching other people do impressive things.

Androgyny.

The song landslide played at opportune times, inciting tears.

Crying hard.

Harry Styles’ collection of billowy shirts.

The first bite of a new food. She loves

To eat.

When she feels safe and

Even if Saturn’s rings

Dry on the edge

Of her night stand

She’ll still be there in the morning.

Beautifully Average-

Floating somewhere between 

Teacup stars.